Compatibility of different types of Distribution Points

I noticed that it can be handy to know which types of Distribution Points are compatible with each other. For example, if you want to setup Multicast you can NOT use a Server Share. There is documentation about this, but for me it was hard to find. This is why I posted the most important part of this article (the compatibility table) in this post.   Server Server Share Branch Standard BITS-Enabled Protected Mobile Device Support Internet Based Clients Streaming Multicast Server N/A No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Server Share No N/A No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Branch Yes No N/A No No Yes No No Yes No Standard Yes No No N/A Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes …

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Distribution Point Groups in ConfigMgr 2007

This time I want to devote a post to Distribution Point Groups in ConfigMgr 2007. The most important thing to understand is that Distribution Point Groups are NOT meant to balance the load. Distribution Point Groups are meant to facilitate the processes of copying packages to Distribution Points (DP). Packages can then be sent to a Group of DP’s rather than to a single DP. One important thing to remember is that if you add a DP to an existing Group of DP’s, the new DP does not automatically receive packages that are previously copied to that Group. Create a Distribution Point Group by following the next steps: Open the Configuration Manager console and browse to System Center Configuration Manager > Site Database > Site …

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ConfigMgr 2007, USMT 4.0 and using Hard-Links

One of the coolest new functions of USMT 4.0 is the new hard-link migration store (only for computer-refresh scenarios). These migration stores are stored locally on the computer that is being refreshed and can migrate user accounts, files and settings. This way it will save time and space during a computer-refresh (and you do not need a State Migration Point!). When you create a default Task Sequence it will create the steps Request User State Storage and Release User State Storage. These steps are needed to interact with the State Migration Point (SMP) to get available space and to tell that the action completed successfully. So these steps are not needed anymore when you are using hard-links! This is why these steps are grayed out …

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Copy logs from a failed Task Sequence in ConfigMgr 2007

I like to do multiple things at a time… So I don’t like to wait on my Task Sequence, after I made a a few changes, to see if it doesn’t fail. This is why I searched for some sort of error catching in a Task Sequence. During this search I found this great article of Steve Raichu: http://blogs.msdn.com/steverac/archive/2008/07/15/capturing-logs-during-failed-task-sequence-execution.aspx In this article he explains the following important steps that are needed for an automatic error catching: Use a top group in a Task Sequence that is set to Continue on error. The rest of your functioning Task Sequence has to be added under this group. In this way the Task Sequence will continue to the following group if a part of the Task Sequence has …

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Remote Distribution Points in ConfigMgr 2007

This post will be a short follow-up on a previous post about How a client chooses a Distribution Point. In that post I tried to explain how a client picks a (Remote) Distribution Point (DP). In this post I will try to take away some more confusion about Remote DP’s. Let’s start with when a DP is considered a Remote DP. ConfigMgr looks at this from the clients perspective. If a client is within a Fast Network Boundary, then the DP(‘s) that is in the same Boundary will be marked as a Local DP. All the other DP’s are marked as Remote DP’s. The important part here is that a client has to be within the correct Boundary and that you are the only one who …

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How to create a Capture Only Task Sequence with ConfigMgr 2007

Some things are a lot easier then you might think. One of these things is creating a Capture Only Task Sequence. As you all know there is the option within ConfigMgr 2007 to create a Build and Capture Task Sequence, well creating a Capture Only Task Sequence is nothing more then taking the Capture part of the default Build and Capture Task Sequence. So I use in my Capture Only Task Sequence the following steps: Join Workgroup (this step is only necessary when the Reference Machine is joined to a domain) Prepare ConfigMgr Client Prepare OS Capture the Reference Machine The first steps all need to run in Full OS, which means that you can’t start this Task Sequence by booting in WinPE. I just …

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Configuration Manager 2007 R3 is on the calendar

I would like to make a short note of the following announcement: Today, the System Center team is excited to share with you their plan to release System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3.  This new release of the ConfigMgr is packed with some extremely cool features, which over the coming months they plan to share with you in different ways. See for the complete article: http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2009/09/08/announcing-system-center-configuration-manager-2007-r3.aspx

After upgrading to ConfigMgr 2007 R2 SP2 (RC) all OS Deployment Task Sequences are failing

After the upgrade of my test lab (which is running in Native Mode) to ConfigMgr 2007 R2 SP2 (RC) all my Task Sequences suddenly fail with the error: An error occurred while retrieving policy for this computer (0x80004005). Taking a look at my SMSTS.LOG it showed me the error: No cert available for policy decoding. This made me wonder what happened to my PXE Certificate that I applied to my PXE Service Point. So I took a look at my certificates (System Center Configuration Manager > Site Database > Site Management > <MySiteName> > Site Settings > Certificates > PXE). Here I noticed that my PXE Certificate was just suddenly missing… So after re-adding my PXE Certificate to my PXE Service Point it all worked …

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Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 RC has been released

Today a little newsflash from the System Center Configuration Manager team. The System Center Configuration Manager team would like to announce that the following has been released and available for download: Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 Release Candidate. This is the official Release Candidate build for Configuration Manager 2007 SP2. New features: Refer to the SP2 Overview article posted on the primary Configuration Manager MSConnect site for all the new features and new supported configurations. Hotfixes included in SP2 article can be found on the primary Configuration Manager MSConnect page. Deployment guides for BranchCache and the new AMT features are available in the download section. The new OpsMgr07 R2 ConfigMgr07 Management Pack can also be downloaded, this supports 64bit OpsMgr client agents. Please review …

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How to control the bandwidth of the package movements in ConfigMgr 2007

In this post I will give some information about how to control the package movement of ConfigMgr 2007. The table in this post shows the Bandwidth Control options with the different Package Movements in ConfigMgr 2007. Besides the Bandwidth Control it also show if it uses Binary Differential Replication (BDR). BDR is used by ConfigMgr 2007 to update package source files with a minimum of additional network traffic. It sends the parts of the package that have changed since the last time the package was sent. This minimizes the network traffic between sites. A file is considered to be changed if it has been renamed, moved, or its contents have changed. Package Movement Bandwidth Control BDR From package source directory to site server None No …

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