Applications

Install computer-targeted application during OS deployment via PowerShell and ConfigMgr 2012

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A few months ago I did a blog post about installing user-targeted applications during operating system deployments via PowerShell and ConfigMgr. This time I will do a similar post, on request, about installing computer-targeted applications during operating system deployments. Yes, I know it might be worth a discussing about why someone is still using computer-targeted deployments, but that will not be a part of this blog post. Script A big part of this script, and by that also this post, might look familiar, as it’s based on the previous script for user-targeted applications. Just like with that previous script I will go through all the key steps of the script. The following five steps make sure that I only get the applications that are required …

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Unexpected results: Use role based administration to provide different access to specific applications in ConfigMgr 2012

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This time I want to address a specific scenario around role based administration. This scenario will be focused on providing different levels of access, for a user, on different applications. I’ve seen this question on different forums over the last year(s) and also had this same question with a customer recently. Scenario This scenario is about a enterprise customer that uses ConfigMgr for managing their laptops. Nothing special, so far, not even the fact that they have around 100k laptops spread over the globe. What makes this customer special is the fact that they have a global IT department and a local IT department per country. The global IT department is responsible for making the generic applications available and the local IT department is responsible …

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Install User-targeted Applications during OS Deployment via PowerShell and ConfigMgr 2012

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Let’s start my first post of this great new year with another nice PowerShell script. This post will be about deploying required user targeted applications, to the device of the primary user, during OS deployment. Yes, I know the setting of Pre-deploy software to the user’s primary device, but that doesn’t give enough control. After deployment, the device has to be completely ready for use. A bit more than a year ago I already did a post about pre-provisioning user applications during OS deployment via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012. This time I wanted to make less assumptions. I also wanted to be sure that a user is a member of a collection and what the application is that is deployed to the collection. I first …

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Showing Dependent Applications in ConfigMgr 2012 via PowerShell

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This week I want to devote a blog post to finding dependent applications. Via the ConfigMgr Console it’s very easy to find the configured Dependencies of an Application, but what if I want to know which applications depend on a specific Application? Via the ConfigMgr Console this is not possible (out-of-the-box), but this doesn’t mean that the information is not accessible. In this blog post I will show where to find this information and I will show a complete script which will show the results in a nice form. Solution In WMI there is the class SMS_AppDependenceRelation. This class doesn’t contain any methods, but does contain a few interesting properties. These interesting properties are FromApplicationCIID, FromDeploymentTypeCIID, ToApplicationCIID and ToDeploymentTypeCIID. The properties mainly speak for themselves, …

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Using Global Conditions to check the State of a Service with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week my post will be about using a Global Condition to check the State of a service. I came to this, as I was once again deploying my UE-V Agent, like here, but this time via a normal Deployment. This installation will only run, without failure, when the Offline Files Service (CscService) is running. So a Requirement for the Deployment Type should be that the service is running. As I like to find ways to do things without the need of scripts/ scripting, I came to using a standard Global Condition. Configuration Now lets take a look at how we can configure a Global Condition, in such a way, that it checks for the State of a service. During the configuration steps I will …

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Managing Approval Requests in ConfigMgr 2012

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This week I want to devote a post to managing Approval Requests in ConfigMgr 2012. I’m not going to discuss whether the current model works, or not, I’m just going to say that in general it won’t work. The reason for that is simple, because it’s just one big list for everyone and every single Approval Request. To fill a small gap here, there is the Application Approval Workflow (solution accelerator), but for that also System Center 2012 – Service Manager and – Orchestrator are required. This just doesn’t fill the gap for everyone and/ or every company. So where does this leave us? Approval Manager Instead of complaining about all this, something that’s in a humans’ nature to do, we can also look at …

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Preventing initiation of available deployments on specific systems with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week I want to devote a small post to a question that I read on windows-noob.com. The question came to the point whether, or not, it is possible to deploy applications via a task sequence, but only allow administrators to actually run it. This question triggered me to look a bit better into the different Client Settings and then specifically the setting of Install permissions. This setting gives us the possibility to prevent the initiation of available deployments via the Software Center and the Application Catalog on specific systems. So in this post I will show that setting by only allowing administrators to initiate available deployments. Configuration Now lets start with the configuration, which is actually very easy, but like always it’s all about …

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Troubleshooting Windows app package deployment on Windows 8 with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week I was planning on doing a post about deploying a Windows app package (.appx) on Windows 8, until I saw that Keith Mayer already just posted a Step-by-Step for that. As that post is, from a ConfigMgr perspective, already very complete, I changed, from my original plan, to troubleshooting the deployment of a Windows app package (.appx) on Windows 8. The deployment of a Windows app package (.appx) on Windows 8 requires two specific settings and in this post I will describe those settings and the errors that will appear when these settings are forgotten. Import the root certificate as a Trusted Root Certification Authority The first setting is that the app package has to be signed with a certificate chain that can …

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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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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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