How to use Task Sequence Variables in a running Task Sequence by script in ConfigMgr 2007

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Using Task Sequence variables in a running Task Sequence by script is actually really straight forward. Also for most of you this might be common knowledge, but I noticed this week that it doesn’t count for everyone, yet. So in this post I will show the two (only two!) steps it takes to get or set variables with your script. The first step is to create an instance of Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment. As this is a COM automation object, you could use every language that can use those. I will use VBScript in this example. Creating the object can be done by the following line of code: set env = CreateObject(“Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment”) Now that we’ve got our object the second step is to get, or set Task Sequence …

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All ConfigMgr 2012 related releases combined

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What a week it was! As we all expected the last week was one full of cool announcements and releases. In this post I will give an overview of all the ConfigMgr 2012 related releases of last week. System Center 2012 empowers you with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for your business. System Center 2012 is available in English. Download System Center 2012: http://bit.ly/Jzfak9 System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Component Add-ons and Extensions Package Conversion Manager (PCM). The Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Package Conversion Manager allows for converting packages and programs into applications and deployment types in System Center Configuration Manager 2012. There is a …

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Some basic USMT 4.0 actions explained

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The last few weeks a saw and got a lot of questions about capturing specific files and folders with USMT. These actions are actually quite basic and good documented on Technet, but still seem to raise a lot of questions. So I decided to devote a post to this. I will show some examples and will try to explain what it all means. Let’s start with a component that migrates all files in a specific folder. <component type=”Documents” context=”System”>  <displayName>Component to migrate all files in a specific folder including subfolders</displayName>     <role role=”Data”>        <rules>           <include>              <objectSet>                 <pattern type=”File”>C:\SpecificFolder\* [*]</pattern>              </objectSet>           </include>        </rules>    </role> </component> Well, that’s a nice component but what does it all mean? Let’s go …

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Overlapping Boundaries and ConfigMgr 2012

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In ConfigMgr 2007 everybody’s first reaction about overlapping boundaries was “don’t do it!”, but is that the same in ConfigMgr 2012? Well, the answer on that differs per situation. In this post I will describe the three different situations/ scenario’s about overlapping boundaries and ConfigMgr 2012. Scenario 1 – Overlapping boundaries for automatic site assignment: NOT supported! The site to which the client will assign is still unpredictable when there are multiple boundary groups that includes the current network location of the client (and of course, the boundary groups are assigned to different sites). Scenario 2 – Overlapping boundaries for content locations: Supported! It will enable the client to get a list of all the content locations that are connected with a boundary group that …

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System Center 2012 Configuration Manager RC2 is available!

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For those who didn’t read it on Twitter, Facebook or mail yet, ConfigMgr 2012 RC2 is available for download! Last night I received the following mail: Dear : Thank you for downloading one or more System Center 2012 pre-release components. System Center 2012 Release Candidate is now available as part of the Microsoft private cloud evaluation: » Download Microsoft private cloud evaluation software Enjoy! Your TechNet Team By starting the download I was pleasantly surprised to see that a part of this download is ConfigMgr 2012 RC2 (see picture).

Remember this?: Software Distribution is currently paused on this computer with ConfigMgr 2007

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This is more of a remember this for my self then probably in general, as this is a problem that we don’t run into that much. Only for me it was the second time already, but I couldn’t directly remember anymore what the problem was. So this post will be more of a reminder for the eventually next time… Also this will be a short post as it will just describe the problem we ran into with my current customer and what the solution was. The problem we ran into was that after we deployed a new machine we could advertise software to it, but the installation would never start. Looking into the execmgr.log we could see the following message: “This program cannot run because …

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Remember this?: Re-run Advertisement for one (or more) specific client(s) with ConfigMgr 2007

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I’m not sure if this is going to be a ‘remember this’ –series, but at least in this case it fits really good. We all know it, but sometimes we need a refreshment. We all know those scenario’s where we send an Advertisement to a Collection of clients and for some reason we may want to rerun the Advertisement for only one (or more) specific client(s). In this case we can use the general rerun options of an Advertisement (like always rerun), but they will affect all clients in the collection and won’t work for user-targeted Advertisements. So what’s left in this case? Well the option I like the most is that there is a registry change that we can make to trick the Advertisement …

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System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection point in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (RC)

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Last week there was finally another update on ConfigMgr 2012. Besides some small changes, they also slightly changed the name of the products in the System Center –family. It all (including Endpoint Protection) now starts with System Center 2012! This post will be about the new Endpoint Protection point in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. During the beta’s it was already clear that Microsoft was going to change something about the integration of ConfigMgr 2012 and FEP 2012, and they did! They removed the Endpoint Protection from the Forefront –family and fully integrated it with ConfigMgr 2012! I also mentioned before that I’m not really the “step-by-step guide maker”, but in some cases there are exceptions and this is another one of these cases. In …

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Received the Microsoft Community Contributor 2011 award!

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Today I was pleasantly surprised that I received the following mail from Microsoft. Congratulations! We’re pleased to inform you that your contributions to Microsoft online technical communities have been recognized with the Microsoft Community Contributor Award. The Microsoft Community Contributor Award is reserved for participants who have made notable contributions in Microsoft online community forums such as TechNet, MSDN and Answers. The value of these resources is greatly enhanced by participants like you, who voluntarily contribute your time and energy to improve the online community experience for others. Thank you Microsoft!

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager RC1 is available!

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For those who didn’t read it on Twitter (my Twitter almost exploded), Facebook or mail yet, ConfigMgr 2012 RC1 is available for download! For more information, read here the mail of Microsoft Connect: We are extremely excited to announce the availability of the release candidates for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection (formerly known as Forefront Endpoint Protection 2012) today. Both releases are available through a single download package on the Microsoft Download Center.  You can learn more about this release at our Server and Cloud Platform blog. Thank you for your on-going program participation and product feedback as it was instrumental in achieving this important milestone!  Our next CEP session will focus on the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager …

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