Expired Cloud Management Gateway server authentication certificate

by

Let’s start this new year with a short blog post about the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG). More specifically, about replacing an (expired) server authentication certificate on the CMG. The server authentication certificate is a required certificate for the CMG. That certificate is used to build the secure channel that is used with the created HTTPS service. The HTTPS service is were the internet-based clients connect. This certificate should come from a public provider, or from a public key infrastructure (PKI). In this post I’ll have a quick look at how to prevent the expiration of the server authentication certificate and how to replace the server authentication certificate. Certificate expiration The most important thing to note is – like with everything else – that prevention is …

Read more

Windows Insider MVP 2020!

by

Another year, another awesome start! Earlier today I received that great email stating that I’m re-awarded as a Windows Insider MVP! What an awesome start of the new year! I feel really honored and privileged to be awarded with my second Windows Insider MVP award and to already been holding the Microsoft MVP (Enterprise Mobility) award for five years! Just awesome! An awesome start, of another community driven year! Of course none of this would be possible without the support of my great family I love them and couldn’t do this without their support! Just awesome! I’m ready for another awesome year! 

Enabling the ConfigMgr administration service through the cloud management gateway

by

This week is all about the administration service in Configuration Manager. More specifically, about enabling the Configuration Manager administration service via the cloud management gateway (CMG) to make it available over the Internet. The administration service provides API interoperability access to WMI over HTTPS via the SMS Provider. This REST API can be used in place of a custom web service to access information of the Configuration Manager site. Some really good information and starting points about this subject can be found at this blog post by Adam Gross. In this post I’ll skip the basics and specifically look at making the administration service available over the Internet. I want to provide in my own style what the configuration requirements are and why they are …

Read more

Device compliance based on custom configuration baselines

by

This week is all about the new feature to include a custom configuration baselines as part of a compliance policy assessment. That’s a new feature that is introduced in Configuration Manager, version 1910. That will also make this a followup on the post I did earlier this year about using the power of ConfigMgr together with Microsoft Intune to determine device compliance. This will be added functionality, as it’s now possible to make custom configuration baselines part of the device compliancy check. For both, Configuration Manager managed devices and co-managed devices. Even when the workload is switched to Microsoft Intune. Introduction This option that makes it possible to use a custom device configuration baseline part of a compliancy policy, opens up a whole new world …

Read more

The different ways of (re)naming Windows 10 devices

by

This week is all about Windows 10 devices. More specifically about (re)naming Windows 10 devices. And all that by using standard available functionality without custom scripting. This post will bring different posts together that I did over the last couple of years and will introduce one new configuration option that was recently introduced within Windows Autopilot. In this post I’ll go through the different (configuration) options for (re)naming Windows 10 devices. Configuration options Now let’s dive into the different configuration options. All of these configuration options are from a MDM-Intune-Autopilot perspective. Scripting a device rename action could also be scripted by using PowerShell, but for this post I want to rely on built-in functionality. Custom device configuration profile The first configuration option that I want …

Read more

Report-only mode for conditional access

by

This week is, like last week, about a awareness for new feature that is introduced with conditional access. Last week was all about the recently introduced Conditional Access Insights workbook. In that post I already mentioned the Report-only mode for conditional access policies. In this post I want to focus on that Report-only mode. Report-only mode is a new state of a conditional access policy state that allows IT administrators to evaluate the impact of conditional access policies before enabling them in their environment. That enables the IT administrators to anticipate on the number and names of users impacted by common deployment initiatives such as blocking legacy authentication, requiring multi-factor authentication, or implementing sign-in risk policies. A great step forward. In this post I’ll walk through …

Read more

Conditional Access Insights

by

This week is all about creating awareness for the Conditional Access Insights workbook. This workbook is currently still in preview and is using Azure Monitor workbook functionality. The Conditional Access Insights workbook contains sign-in log queries that can help IT administrators with getting insights on the impact of conditional access policies. That is useful for troubleshooting, for following trends and for testing the latest introduction to conditional access of Report-only policies. Especially the latest category can be easily verified by using the Conditional Access Insights workbook. In this post I’ll walk trough the steps of creating a Log Analytics workspace (to store Azure Monitor log data), followed by the steps to send Azure AD sign-in information to Azure Monitor logs.I’ll end this post by actually …

Read more

Working with the restart behavior of Win32 apps

by

A long time ago, I did a post about Working with the restart behavior of Applications in ConfigMgr 2012. That post is still being read pretty well. Based on the interest of that post, and the introduction of nice new features to the Win32 apps, I thought it would be a good idea to redo that post for Microsoft Intune. Before an IT administrator had to be creative to work with, or work around, the restart behavior of Win32 apps. Either by wrapping installations and capturing the exit code, or by tuning the translation of an return code. With the latest adjustments to the Win32 apps, within Microsoft Intune, the IT administrator has more options to actually work with the return code of an Win32 …

Read more

Applicability rules for device configuration profiles

by

This week a new blog post about a little nice, but quite unknown, feature. Applicability rules for device configuration profiles. The nice thing about applicability rules is that those rules can be used to target devices in a group that meet specific criteria. That enables an administrator to assign a device configuration profile to all users, or all Windows 10 devices, but only actually apply to Windows 10 devices of a specific version or edition. In this post I’ll go through the configuration of applicability rules (including a few important details) and the administrator experience. Configure applicability rule Let’s start by looking at applicability rules. Applicability rules can be configured for every device configuration profile type with Windows 10 and later as Platform, with the …

Read more

Conditional access and ipadOS

by

Update: Azure AD has taken a change in how they recognize the browsers so conditional access will now work as expected when creating an iPad conditional access policy and browsing to the modern desktop-class browsing experience on iPadOS. For more information see this article. Maybe a little overdue, but this week is all about ipadOS in combination with conditional access. At the end of September, Apple released ipadOS. A new platform for iPad. One of the ideas behind ipadOS is to provide “desktop-class browsing with Safari”. That desktop-class browsing is achieved by making sure that the Safari browser on ipadOS will present itself as a Safari browser on macOS. That change introduces a few challenges in combination with conditional access. I know that a lot …

Read more