TheScarfedOne

Welcome to Part 2 of my System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) series – desigined to show you how to get a basic setup up and running in a day not a week! So, Im guessing you’ve gone through Part 1 – and are now ready to get on with the actual install. You will be needing those two AD accounts - SCCMAdmin and SCCMClient – so make sure you have them ready. Starting the Install STOP – SCCM needs to extend the AD Schema. If you have not installed SCCM before, you will need to do this. Checklist…. 1. Where is your Schema Master role (it will be one of your Domain Controllers) 2. You can only update the Schema if you are a Schema Admin. Give the user account membership of that group via AD Users and Computers 3. Remote Desktop to that server, and access the SCCM Install CD from that server (you need to share it – then you can use \\SERVERNAME\DRIVE) 4. Open an elevated Command Prompt, and run extADSch.exe method and located it on the SCCM 2007 DVD (..\SMSSETUP\BIN\I386) Install "Take 2" Back to our install…. On your SCCM server, run the Setup file, and then on the splash screen, select Install. Now, lets walk through the setup and its options… First we will get the usual “Welcome screen”, which you can click through. Next up – what to do! Choose the first option, Install a Configuration Manager site server. Now time to review the licence – go on, read it if you must! Of course, we always do. Next we get to choose the type of installation, choose Custom, so that it is set up as we want. Next up – choosing a site type. As you are reading this article – im guessing you are new to SCCM – so it will always be “Primary site”. You would use “Secondary” in branch scenarios, or in some upgrades. Time to choose whether you want to be in the improvement programme; enter your license key, and then an install directory. Lets get more serious The “Site Code” section is where things start to get interesting. Choose something sensible – like a short version of your domain name etc; and give a description. You then need to choose a mode. Everyone will tell you to use “Native mode” – and yes, this is more secure – but it will also take you longer to set up. Ive run both, and have always found “Mixed mode” to be more stable. So – choose “Mixed”. The next screen asks about the agents you want to use – this is why we chose “Custom” setup. Add Hardware Inventory, Software Inventory, Advertised Programs, Remote Tools. You can add others if you want, but these are the ones we are going to deal with. We are nearly there now – most important step, where is your database. Yes, you can use clustered SQL here too. Point the setup at your SQL instance. You can also choose your DB Name. Next you need the specify the “Provider” – and as the dialog says, on clustered SQL, this cannot be on the SQL. I tend to use the SCCM box itself. The SMS Provider is used by the Configuration Manager console, Resource Explorer, tools and custom scripts used by Configuration Manager Admins to access site information stored in the site database. The Management Point is your next choice – again, I tend to use the full name (dotted domain – ie FQDN) of the SCCM Server. TCPIP Ports are up next, don’t mess with this unless you need to. There’s just no need! You are then going to do a quick net connection to grab the latest SCCM components. You can download these in advance if you want to though. A pre-requisite check will then be done – all should be good to go. So sit back, whilst it installs – and it can take quite a while! Coming next Now – Ive changed my mind a bit on how to complete this blog series. Part 3 is going to deal with your initial configuration, and Part 4 will deal with doing a build and capture of and OS – and push it out. Part 5 will deal with what to do with Applications. Part 6 will bring Part 4 and Part 5 together and show you how I run SCCM live now, to build any machine and do automatic software deployments based on AD groups. Stay tuned!

There is some stuff on this over on my Blog

I did something about this on my blog a while ago. A nice bit of powershell, which you could set as a scheduled task for automation...

Ok... so a departure from my normal belongings - but a bit of idle (well maybe not) fun and games... Read, and enjoy the underbelly of society! The DARWIN Awards! It's with great pleasure that I announce...it's that time again. The Darwin Awards are out! These Annual Honors are given to the persons who did the human gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. You may recall that last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out. This year's winner was a genuine Rocket Scientist...no jive! Read on...and remember that each and every one of these is a true story. The nominees were: Semifinalist #1 A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him and his sister. Semifinalist #2 Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles. Semifinalist #3 A 22-year-old Reston , VA man was found dead after he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot rail road trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the concrete," Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma." Semifinalist #4 A man in Alabama died from numerous rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate - was hospitalized, but lived. Semifinalist #5 Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the ga s company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had never been thought of as ''especially bright'' by his peers. And now the winner of this year's Darwin Award; as always, awarded posthumously; THE 2011 WINNER! Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket scientist had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off...actually a solid-fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO! The facts as best could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, and soon-to-be pilot, would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become irrelevant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable. Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not actually on the ground. Really.....we couldn't make this stuff up. People like these are all around us. They have kids and they vote.

Hmmmm... OK. Im going to post up screenies of mine. Can you DM me with yours and I will take a look - or we can arrange an RDP session...

No, and no! I will cover what to do if you already have WDS already installed. It depends whether you are putting SCCM on the same server, or if you want to keep your current WDS running while you test and set up SCCM. I would go with option 2 if you can....

It always appears for the first few seconds (the bar that is), and the connection dialog disappears so quickly that I had never thought about removing it. Im not sure that you can - but Ill ask the RDP team...

A useful prompt for reminding me of something I do as a matter of course... and didnt think others would always use!

But under EES you can already buy the System Centre "Pack" which covers all use of the Server Products; and so long as you have gone Enterprise CAL - you are well away

This post is going to seem very odd - as it is Part 4 of a series, where Ive only published Part 1 so far! Bear with me, there is a reason... A lot of my blogs recently have covered areas I get asked about a lot - and this one came up today! Take the scenario, you are sending out your OS Builds to Machines, and also you are letting staff choose from your catalog of software to install themselves. Problem - your OS install also shows in the list, so technically - they could bork the machine youve just set up for them. Hiding Tasks from the Run Advertised Programs window There is no way to hide the Operating System Deployments from being advertised to “normal” users, but there is a workaround. You can set the OSD to run only on a specific OS. Then you would select an OS that you don’t use in your organization. With this setting, an OSD will not be advertised to a user while working on the computer. However, you will still be able to re-image the system using PXEboot or USB boot (booting to WinPE)

Theres also a jquery notifications system you can use on Sharepoint. Handy thing is you can track who has marked it as read as well.

You could use USB Drive letter manager, which is a MSI install - more often used to force use of certain drive letters or Card Readers and USB pens. You could set it not to use any letter - effectively disabling it.

No worries guys. The same for us really, you just get to know everyone by their alterego! We are mostly up and getting ready for all our trips back. The poster is going to be framed and brought to all events I believe

Not really. Its running in a different domain. There is not a direct upgrade route (yet) for 2007 - 2012, so they are essentially separate. You can create a new primary site, and then add your 2007 as a child and migrate across.

Im using 2007 R3 now, and have been for some time. Like above - Im not keen on the Software Update Point feature either - I still let WSUS handle that one. Ive got 2012 up on another one of my VMs, and it seems fine. Big interface changes on the surface, but underneath you still find essentially the same dialogs and options. The logic is slighly different now, targetting towards users - but you can stiull target machines if you prefer (and I do).

It was really...it was just a matter of time. After the Microsoft Academy Day at Reading - where Kinnect in Education on Windows, I had my suspicions that a formal announcement would follow at one of the main shows. Shame the Americans got there first. There will be bits on the BETT stand for this as well

I knew there was another post to do this weekend! I will write and screenie it on the train tomo. Wi you be at BETT? If so, will take some time out on the stand to show and Rdp in.

Ive had a lot of contact from people asking about installing System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) – having all sorts of issues with it. Normally – this install and config to the basics of doing a build and capture, through to the end game of it deploying your network clients for you! Im not going to cover AD or DHCP – other than saying have 2 accounts setup ready to use, something like SCCMAdmin and SCCMClient. Make sure that you arent running SCCM on the same server as DHCP; and if at all possible, run it on dedicated hardware. This is going to be a 3 part post – this one (the first) will deal with the getting started bits. The stuff you really need to read and follow to avoid issues later. First Steps Rule 1 – make sure you have all your prerequisites done. No, seriously – really do. The amount of times this happens! 1. Do the AD Schema update Its not as terrible as it sounds! If you’ve not extended the Active directory schema before – this is a good guide… WindowsNoob SCCM Schema Update. 2. Remote Differential Compression It is needed, so in Server Manager, on the Features node, start the Add Features Wizard.On the Select Features page, select Remote Differential Compression. Job done. 3. Windows Deployment Services WDS – well, Im assuming you will be wanting to use the killer automated Operating Systems deployment! Add the WDS role – but do not (I repeat really DO NOT) configure it. Don’t even open its console!a 4. IIS[/i ]IIS – yes, SCCM “needs” IIS, make sure you give it all this bits of it that it needs. There are a few, and 9 times out of 10 – you will miss one! The following Web Server role services should be installed. IIS Role Services Web Server Common HTTP Features (in IIS 7.5 [server 2008 R2] – you will find WebDav here which you also need to add) Static Content Default Document Directory Browsing HTTP Errors HTTP Redirection Application Development ASP.NET .NET Extensibility ASP ISAPI Extensions ISAPI Filters Health and Diagnostics HTTP logging Logging tools Request Monitor Tracing Security Basic Authentication Windows Authentication URL Authorization Request Filtering IP and Domain Restrictions Performance Static Content Compression Management Tools IIS Management Console IIS Management Scripts and Tools Management Service IIS 6 Management Compatibilty IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility IIS 6 WMI Compatibility IIS 6 Scripting Tools IIS 6 Management Console Now, after you’ve got that little lot all installed, time to do a bit of configuring! URL Authorization Feature: When the Authorization feature opens, make sure that an Allow rule is defined that includes the administrator account Authentication Feature: Right click on Windows Authentication and choose Enable WebDav Feature: This one should come with a health warning! In IIS7.5 [server 2008 R2]– this is a role service not an additional install. For IIS7 [server 2008] – download and install from Microsoft download centre. Then configure as follows… 1.Startup IIS Manager and in the Connections pane, expand the Sites node in the tree, then click the Default Web Site, then double-click the WebDAV Authoring Rules icon. 2. Click enable webdav in the Actions pane on the right side. Once you've clicked it it will then say 'Disable webdav' so be sure not to click there again, now we need to click the Add Authoring Rule task in the Actions pane. 3. Start IIS Manager, select the server and select Stop from the actions. 4. Start Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\schema. 5. Right-click WebDAV_schema.xml and select Properties. 6. Select the Security tab and click the Advanced button. 7. Select the Owner tab and click Edit. Change the owner to administrators so the permissions can be changed. 8. Select the Permissions tab and grant your user or administrators Full Control via the Change Permissions button. Click OK, and then open the WebDAV_schema.xml file in Notepad. Find the area below and make sure the values are set as shown: 9. Click Save. 10. Start the IIS service in IIS Manager These settings you can make in IIS Manager, but Ive found that they don’t actually set in the xml file 9 times out of 10 – so doing it this way prevents it being a worry. IIS reads this file when it starts so it appears correctly. Now you should be ready to do the install, which will be covered in Post 2 in a few days time.

Ok – so, most of you know I love System Centre products – and after getting SCCM (System Centre Configuration Manger) setup nicely (I will blog on this, as lots of people seem to have a problem getting this up and running in less than a day) – it was time to play with its partner in crime SCOM (System Centre Operations Manager). Introduction What exactly is Operations Manager? Well, it revolves around an agent on the computer to be monitored. The agent watches that computer, grabbing and collating all the information about its inner workings - including the Windows Event Log. It can be set to look for specific events or alerts generated by the applications executing on the monitored computer. Upon alert occurrence and detection, the agent forwards the alert to a central SCOM server. This SCOM server application maintains a database that includes a history of alerts. The SCOM server applies filtering rules to alerts as they arrive; a rule can trigger some notification to a human, such as an e-mail, generate a network support ticket (it can feed to System Centre Service Manager – I will write about that at some point!), or basically any other action you want it to. When you deploy software with SCCM, you may have seen the dialog about “Generating MOM alert”. Not surprisingly being part of the same suite of products – you can read and query the software installs that you request completion of. In fact most actions that you can complete in SCCM have the option of generating information for SCOM. SCOM uses management packs (MP) to keep tabs on machines. MPs to refer to a set of filtering rules specific to some monitored application. Obviously Microsoft make management packages available for their products (Exchange, Sharepoint and the usual suspects) - and also SCOM also provides for authoring custom management packs. A lot of other vendors have now started doing MPs too. Now that’s our overview done, lets get to the nitty gritty of installing this beast. Installation....you think! I would recommend that SCOM sits on its own dedicated server – it an get quite busy depending on the size of your network! So, it was time to quickly build another VM on my Hyper V Platform. As the whole network is only 6 months old, it is all Server 2008 R2 – and the SQL Platform is at 2008 R2 as well. Problem number one – although SQL Server 2008 R2 has been out and about now for over a year, can cannot do a straight install. Irritatingly, the installer logic will fail to see either a local, remote or clustered SQL 2008 R2 system. Grrrr! Cue some jumping through hoops. I will assume you’ve got your SQL all set up already; and just a quick hint - if you need SCOM 2007 R2 reporting, don't forget install SSRS. You will want it, and anyway – most other database backend products want Reporting Services anyway. Database setup On your SQL Server, find and run DBCreatWizard.exe tool from the SCOM R2 install media – it hides in SupportTools > AMD64. This will launch the Database configuration wizard. Hit next, and then under Database Information , you can select database type , now we need create Operations Manager Database firstly, fill in SQL Port and Database Name and size (leave as default to be honest). Your instance and the data file locations should be picked automatically according to your SQL setup. After that you can choose the Management Group name , and permissions to run and administer SCOM. I would set your MG name to your domain or something descriptive rather than the default. Another heads up – set your administrators to Domain Admins, (or another group preferably) which has your technicians in it. You will then get the usual summary screen to hit next to, and hopefully all being well you will get the “Database created successfully” popup. Now, you need to run the tool again to create the Operations Manager DW database. Everything is as before, except on the Database Information screen, change the Database type in the top drop down. The usual amount of next-ing, and finally - you can see the databases in SQL Studio. Actual application setup You are now good to go with installing the actual SCOM 2007 R2 management system. Of course – all we have done so far is make a blank set of databases. So – obviously, we need to choose Custom setup (we’ve done part of it right!), and make sure you don’t choose the Database item. That will install all the managementy kind of stuff for you – and it will take it a little while. Another pointer – that Management Group name you chose in the Database setup; make sure you use the same name (but you knew that right!?)! Next step…install SCOM 2007 R2 Reporting, and I’m afraid there’s some more hoops. On the SQL Server Reporting Services server, rename the local group SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSSRS10_50.<SQLInstanceName> to SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSSRS10.<SQLInstanceName> And, as per the main management install, when you install System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Reporting, you need to choose Custom. Do not install the Data Warehouse component! Once the install has completed, rename the local group SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSSRS10.<SQLInstanceName> back to original name SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSSRS10_50.<SQLInstanceName> Looking for the official Microsoft article – well that’s here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2425714)

The man was a legend and will be sorely missed

I have two separate sets of policy. Users > Staff Users > Students and Computers > Terminal Servers > Staff (Loopback) Computers > Terminal Servers > Students (Loopback) As regards different start menus for specific parts of the site - no. Most software is accross site. Yes there will be some "dead links" but there arent many. Ive tried GPP for start menus, but it does add to the logon/startup time. As ours dont change much - and we can roll out changes either by script of SCCM, there are better ways of managing it.

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Right...you need a combo approach. Add the Machine with "Apply GP" permisssion, and also add the User Group with "Apply GP" permission. Authenticated users should only have "Read" not the "Apply GP" permission. Youve reminded me to finsih the article with screenshots for you and the other emailers! I hope that makes sense.... Delegation tab > Click Advanced. Change the permissions here only!

Lol...so thats the theme this year...painted EduGeek staff! Looking forward to seeing the stand @NetCTRL. Haha...thats why they wanted you out of the office @Domino - they found a new use for your desk! See you all Tues

Hahaha...im glad im not the only one! Mine still works too!