Working with the restart behavior of Applications in ConfigMgr 2012

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This week I will do a small post about working with the restart behavior of installations in combination with the Application Model in ConfigMgr 2012. In previous versions there was sometimes a need to use a batch file to catch some weird installation return codes. The nice thing about ConfigMgr 2012 is that it gives us a possibility to specify those return codes and to react on it. In the rest of this post I will show in three steps how to configure ConfigMgr 2012 to work with return (restart) codes. Step 1: Return codes The first thing I always do is running the installation of an application a few times and see which return codes it gives me. Based on those experiences I create, …

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Using Client Push Installation on UNTRUSTED FOREST systems with ConfigMgr 2012

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Last week my post was about using the Client Push Installation on WORKGROUP systems and this week my post will be a sort of follow-up on that. This week my post will be about using the Client Push Installation on UNTRUSTED FOREST systems. The method of last week will also work on UNTRUSTED FOREST systems, but the nice thing about ConfigMgr 2012 is that there are now better options for UNTRUSTED FOREST systems! The systems and domain(s) of the UNTRUSTED FOREST can be discovered AND to make it even better, it is even possible to write information to the Active Directory! Prerequisites Before it is possible to use the Client Push Installation on UNTRUSTED FOREST systems, there are a few things to keep in mind. …

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Using Client Push Installation on WORKGROUP systems with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week my post will be about using the Client Push Installation on WORKGROUP systems. We all know that a manual installation will work on WORKGROUP systems, but wouldn’t it be easier to just use the Client Push Installation? In my opinion the answer would be, YES! And as long as the WORKGROUP systems are configured the same, the configuration is actually quite easy. Prerequisites Before it is possible to use the Client Push Installation on WORKGROUP systems, there are a few things to keep in mind. The following points are a prerequisite and are not further explained in this post: The FQDN of the Management Point system can be resolved on the WORKGROUP system. The Network Discovery is enabled to find the WORKGROUP systems. …

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Deploying Windows 8 and Customizing the Lock Screen with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week my post will be about the deployment of Windows 8 and then with a customized lock screen. One of the main complaints about a customized deployment of Windows 8 was that it wasn’t possible to set a customized lock screen without using unsupported methods of “hacking” file permissions and replacing the pictures. This has changed since the cumulative update of November for Windows 8 (see also here). One of the nice adjustments with this cumulative update is that it enables enterprise customers to customize the default lock screen. This setting is introduced as a Group Policy –setting, named Force a specific default lock screen image. In this post I’m not going to use the Group Policy –setting, but only the corresponding registry value …

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Deploying Windows 8 including Optional Windows Features with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week my post will be about the deployment about the deployment of Windows 8 and then including optional Windows features. I already did a post like this about Windows Server 2012, and the methods are similar, but I’m still getting, and seeing, lots of questions about how it works for Windows 8. So what I really want to show in this post are the different options for deploying Windows 8 including some random Optional Windows Feature(s). The three most used options for this are DISM, Powershell and MDT. Well, actually, to be really correct, there is only one option to install Features in Windows 8 and that’s DISM. Both, Powershell and MDT are just different methods for calling DISM actions. In the rest of …

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An overview of my posts about ConfigMgr 2012 SP1

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Let’s start my first post, of this new year, with an overview of my latest post about ConfigMgr 2012 Service Pack (SP) 1. Normally I’m not really the kind of person that looks back, but in this case it’s with a reason, as most of my posts where with pre-release versions of SP1. I also tried to sort all my posts per subject, even though sometimes there is some overlap. The following posts are all tested, this week, with the RTM version of SP1 and I can confirm that they are still working: System Center Orchestrator Tweeting the deployment status of a system via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012 Using a Status Filter Rule to delete a collection membership via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012 New and …

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Setting up the Windows Intune Connector with ConfigMgr 2012

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I thought that my previous post would be my last for this year, but here I’ve got another one! I will still end this year in the cloud, but instead of in Windows Azure it will now be in Windows Intune! The new release. Wave “D”, of Windows Intune in combination with ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 will now allow us to create a connector between these two worlds and in this small post I will show the basic steps for this. Prerequisites Before it’s possible to setup the Windows Intune Connector there are a few prerequisites. Most of them are optional depending on which devices are going to be managed. To name them all: Create a Windows Intune subscription. (Optional) Create a APNs certificate for iOS. …

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Allowing access to Cloud Distribution Points for specific systems with ConfigMgr 2012

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To end this year in the cloud, I would like to devote this weeks post to allowing systems access to cloud distribution points. A bit more then two months ago I already did a post about creating a cloud distribution point, but until now I’ve never posted anything about the client configuration. By default, a system is not allowed access to cloud distribution points. Prerequisites Before it’s even useful to allow a system access to a cloud distribution point, the system needs to be able to resolve the name of the cloud distribution point. There are two ways to achieve this: The proper way – Create a public CNAME –record to map the service name, provided with the certificate for the cloud service, to the …

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Tweeting the deployment status of a system via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012

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Only a few days before Christmas I thought it would be fun to just create something extra cool for this weeks blog post. I thought about something that would be different, but also useful in some way. So I started thinking about how I would like to get my deployment status messages, as I like to start my deployments without checking them al the time, and I came to Twitter. I’ve got my tweets everywhere, on my phone, my tablet, my laptop, etc. So wouldn’t it be cool to get the deployment status messages on twitter? Prerequisites Now I decided that I want to show how to tweet the deployment status of a task sequence, there are two methods to do that and I will …

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Preventing user-targeted applications and policies on specific systems with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week I want to devote a small post to something very nice and, in some situations, very easy. Think about a situation where, in general, applications are user-targeted and only a few exceptions are system-targeted. Usually these targeted systems are then used specifically for that application. So these systems shouldn’t get all the applications (and settings) of every user that logs on, as it might screw-up the specific application. The nice thing is that ConfigMgr 2012, and especially SP1, has a solution for this! The solution is the new setting Enable user policy on clients. Configuration Now lets start with the configuration, which is actually very easy. Like always it’s all about knowing that the possibility exists. This is another new Client Setting in …

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