Peter's Blog

My flights are booked and registration completed for MMS 2011. I'm particularly happy with the venue being back at Mandalay Bay as the Red Rock Fencing Center is close to the hotel and I intend to take up arms at least three time while I'm in Vegas. And the conference schedule looks good too. Lots of ConfigMgr 2012 Anyone else going?

Happy days Got my Configuration Manager v.Next Community Evaluation Program acceptance invitation. Looking forward to some exciting times!

Had to have a double take on this when I saw it. I was just noting down the KB number for MS10-042 and something seemed a little odd. Then it struck me. MS have now started to use 7 digits in their KB numbers, rather than the 6 that I was used to. Better start getiing used to it :-)

I was troubleshooting a couple of patch installs this morning from the bumper June release and stumbled upon something slightly suprising.

The Windows XP patches for 'Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 SP1 Security Update for Windows 2000 and Windows XP (KB979906)' & 'Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 Security Update for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP x86 (KB979909)' that ITMU downloads…

Due to the volcanic activity in Iceland affecting European airspace, Microsoft have posted an FAQ for Europeans intending to attend MMS 2010. You can view it here...

http://www.mms-2010.com/public/faq_europeanattendee.aspx

Microsoft are now offering a one-off compatibility pack that provides support for Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems as SMS 2003 SP3 clients.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974014

Why? Because from that date onwards I will be able to download Windows 7 RTM from the Technet website.

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/21/when-will-you-get-windows-7-rtm.aspx

From the Configuration Manager Support Team blog.

SMS 2003 SP3 ITMU scan fails with WSUSScn2.CAB released on June 23rd
http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/archive/2009/06/25/sms-2003-sp3-itmu-scan-fails-with-wsusscn2-cab-released-on-june-23rd.aspx

I used this simple SQL query to help identify WUA version and location counts

select distinct fileversion, filepath, count(fileversion)
from v_gs_softwareFile
where…

From the Windows Team Blog, an interview with Jeff Wettlaufer on SCCM 2007 SP2

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/springboard/archive/2009/07/01/system-center-configuration-manager-2007-service-pack-2-beta.aspx

and some blurb around MDT 2010 Beta 2, that most WMUG SCCM guys probably know anyway!

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/springboard/archive/2009/07/07/get-ready-to-deploy-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-with…

It's upgrade time!

Just started our project to upgrade our hierarchy from SMS 2003 SP3 running on Windows Server 2003 (32 bit) with SQL 2005 (32 bit) to SCCM 2007 SP1 R2 (though probably SP2 by implementation time) on Windows Server 2008 (64 bit) and SQL 2008 (64 bit). There'll also be an upgrade from BDD 2.5 to MDT 2008 (possibly MDT 2010).

This is the part of my job that I find most enjoyable and satisfying…

If you're like me, you'll be running your workstation under a low priviledge user account for most tasks and using an elevated priviledge account to perform your administrative duties. Well, I get fed up of continually right clicking an application shortcut, selecting Run as... and entering my elevated user credentials to launch my working toolsets. This is always the case on Monday morning, when my workstation has been…

From Microsoft Support

You have a computer that is running Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) or in Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2). When you try to capture an image, the image capture process of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 RTM fails during the Prepare Windows for Capture stage.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969991

You have a computer that is running Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) or in Windows…

Ever wondered what happens behind the stage and demo screens at an MMS conference to make the keynotes go swimmingly? Microsoft TechNet Edge takes you behind the scenes and shows you what I didn't see!

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Behind-the-scenes-at-MMS-for-the-Keynote-Demo/

And don't miss out on how they prepared for the Windows XP SP3 to Windows 7 laptop upgrade over a wireless network keynote demo.

http…

It's easy enough to write a query to show which packages have been deployed to which distribution points but what about a query to show which packages haven't been deployed to distribution points?

The issue here, is that you need to cycle through all the packages at a site and then in turn determine which distribution points they aren't on. In this example, I've used a simple cursor to achieve this task. If there…

For those of you who attended the last WMUG meeting, you'll remember that Gordon gave a very good presentation on SCOM 2007 R2 and in doing so a new Microsoft catch phrase was unleashed on us with great fury!

Now it seems everyone at Microsoft is on the bandwagon. See if you can spot the sound bite in this article on Windows 7 libraries (Hint: it's just after Using the Common File Dialog (CFD) header).

For…

The Microsoft bulletin for MS09-010 indicates QNumbers 921606, 933399 & 960476 for 'Microsoft Office' but does not indicate a QNumber for 'Windows Operating System and Components'. You may be tempted to try (as I did) the KB Article number 960477 as the QNumber filter for the Windows Operating System and Components in ITMU, only to find no results returned.

Following any of the hyper-links for the Operating…

Perhaps Outlook should've reminded me to bake a cake with 10 candles? Never-the-less, Paul Thompsen's blog brought it to my attention. Doesn't time fly?

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/pthomsen/archive/2009/02/09/129886.aspx

Damn the exchange rate.

Last week I took the plunge and booked my flight to Vegas and handed over not shy of £2k to register for MMS 2009. Despite the cost for me to attend has increased from last year (the Pound buys 30% fewer* Dollars), I still feel that it's an important event to attend. I just hope that the Thursday night party is better than last years!

I'd be interested to hear if any other WMUG members…

Reading Cliff's post here reminded me of a little piece of automation that I cooked up.

Some while back, I was at a SMS 2003 site where files were accumulating in the hardware inventory orphans and bad MIF folders and the software inventory orphans and bad Sinv folders. Now, determining which computers they originated from meant opening each one and inspecting it for the offending computer. There had to be an easier…

SMS 2003 Admins, it's that time again!

If you have scheduled advertisements that run programs that could impact on your environment (e.g. programs that reboot machines), then this weekend's BST to GMT time change may be of significance to you. You should check out KB933870, for SMS 2003 SP1 & SP2 clients. There is also a hotfix rollup package for SMS 2003 SP3 clients, as detailed in KB941395.

Having been…