Build and Capture and Software Updates

March 16th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in Configuration Manager | Operating System Deployment - (0 Comments)

A problem that crops up on the forums every now and then in addition to causing me to pull out some hair is deploying updates during a Build and Capture Task Sequence (TS). There are actually two problems that manifest themselves during a Build and Capture that don’t normally occur and both are caused because …
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Campaign Against SCCM

March 16th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in Configuration Manager | Rants - (0 Comments)

No, I am not anti-Configuration Manager, quite the opposite in fact. I am against the use of the acronym SCCM for Configuration Manager. If you do a web search on SCCM you will see that although Configuration Manager does come up, it does not come up first. This is mainly because SCCM is not a …
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Windows XP Drivers Do Not Install During a Task Sequence

March 12th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in Configuration Manager | Operating System Deployment - (0 Comments)

Well, I’m not actually that old, but I did learn a new trick today. I’ve been fighting the drivers is an OSD XP deployment task sequence for an HP dc5800. The drivers just wouldn’t load. The TS copied them down to the system properly, the DriverPaths registry value was updated properly, but the drivers wouldn’t …
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OSD User Context and Interactivity

January 25th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in ConfigMgr 2007 | Operating System Deployment - (0 Comments)

As a discovery exercise, I created a small, stand-alone app using AutoIT that displays a dialog box with the current value of the environment variables USERNAME and USERDOMAIN, and then waits for the OK button to be pushed. I then added this app to a ConfigMgr package and called it using a command-line task in …
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ConfigMgr and SSRS 2008

January 25th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in Configuration Manager | Reporting - (0 Comments)

While answering a forum post I was reminded that SQL Reporting Services 2008 no longer requires IIS (see http://blogs.technet.com/andrew/archive/2007/12/04/sql-server-2008-reporting-services-no-longer-depends-on-iis.aspx for a good post on this). Thus, when rebuilding my ConfigMgr lab recently, I decided to use SQL 08 and SSRS 08 on Windows Server 08. The only notable thing, IMO, is that the configuration tool …
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LoadPerf 3011 and Running out of Space on a Hyper-V Guest

January 12th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in Windows - (0 Comments)

Today, I visited a customer that I had installed an evaluation version of Configuration Manager at. 120 days passed a couple of weeks ago and now it was time to convert the evaluation into a full version. Simple process really, insert CD, run upgrade … watch LUN on iSCSI storage array hosting the dynamically expanding …
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Suppress Plug and Play UI

January 8th, 2009 | Posted by Jason in ConfigMgr 2007 | Configuration Manager | Operating System Deployment - (0 Comments)

Microsoft just released a new hotfix that allows you to suppress the plug and play UI in Windows XP and Server 2003: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938596. I haven’t played with it yet, but it sounds like it has potential when deploying new systems using ConfigMgr or MDT. Sometimes, there’s that one device you either don’t care about or …
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Blank Task Sequence Variables

December 4th, 2008 | Posted by Jason in ConfigMgr 2007 | Operating System Deployment - (0 Comments)

A new feature of Configuration Manager 2007 R2 is the ability to define a Task Sequence Variable on a Collection or individual resource without a value. Then when the Task Sequence initiates on a system, a dialog box is presented where you can set the value of the variable. A quick example is in order …
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Error Codes

August 26th, 2008 | Posted by Jason in Configuration Manager | Windows - (0 Comments)

Administrators new to System Center Configuration Manager (and SMS) are often befuddled by return/error codes from programs delivered using an advertisement.  The common question is typically something like “Where can I find a list of error codes?”  The answer to this question is that you can’t find a list.  Program return/error codes are completely dependant …
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ConfigMgr Native Mode and Certificates

August 9th, 2008 | Posted by Jason in Native Mode - (0 Comments)

In troubleshooting an unrelated issue, I learned a lot about Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) and how they can impact ConfigMgr and specifically Operating System Deployment (OSD).  I first thought that my problem was the CRL, which would have caused me some pain, but it wasn’t the problem after all.  Below are a couple of great …
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