Searching Config Manager Docs on Technet

As many of you know, searching Config Manager documentation on Technet is a PITA! Fortunetly Jeff Gilbert has figured out how to narrow your Technet search down to just the Config Manager docs. http://blogs.technet.com/wemd_ua_-_sms_writing_team/archive/2007/11/07/how-to-more-easily-search-the-configuration-manager-documentation-library-online.aspx
This should make life significantly better. Can't believe I haven't seen this before now.

Deployment of Vista msu with License Agreement

Just came accross an issue where Vista will ignore the /quiet option for Wusa.exe if the MSU file (a Vista patch) has a built-in license agreement.  To fix this issue, you must install a hotfix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929761

Deployment of Group Policy Preferences Client Side Extensions

Yesterday my Group Policy Admin asked about deploying the Client Side Extensions (CSE's) for Group Policy Preferences (GPP) to all the machines in our network.  So I started looking into it and must say I'm very dissappointed with Microsofts support for the deployment of CSE's.  Sure CSE's are available in WSUS and therefore available in SCCM.  However, they haven't released CSE's for XP SP3 yet.  Additionally, the CSE's have a prerequisite of XMLLite.  Unbelievably, XMLLite is not available via WSUS.  The work around is to deploy IE7 which includes XMLLite.  All of this is a little confusing so I made a chart:

Basically I'll create 2 seperate collections for XMLLite to deploy it to the machines that require it.  Then I'll use Software Updates to deploy the CSE's.  XP SP3 will just have to wait until Microsoft gets it done.  Hopefully they're working on CSE deployment with XMLlite bundled in.

Config Manager Software Updates

Why is config Manager's software update process so confusing?  Today I finally figured it out.  It's because an advertisement can get content from multiple packages!  Think about it.  In a traditional software distribution you have 3 objects to worry about.

1. Collection - Target computers

2. Package- contains the files and the commands (programs) that you want to distribute to clients and execute.

3. Advertisement- Matches the Package to a collection to execute at a specific time.

Now in a Software Update you have 4 objects:

1. Update list- A type of template its just a simple list of updates worthy of attention.  This is the object that doesn't exist in normal software distribution.  It's designed to make life easier since you can group together updates in a way that fits your business needs.

2. Deployment Templates- A template of settings that may or may not apply to a particular collection.

3. Deployment Package- Very similar to a regular package this item contains the updates but doesn't have any command line options since the sccm client will kick off the wua to do the install.  It is basically just a storage location.

4. Deployments- located under Deployment Management- this is actually just a very special advertisement.  It contains it's own list of updates that are not what necessarily what is in an update list or deployment package.  The reason for my confusion.  Basically it is an independent object that can grab updates from multiple packages.

The basic thing to remember is that adding content to a Deployment Package, does not add that content to the actual Deployment (advertisement).  After updating an existing package the updates must be either added to an existing deployment by dragging an update list onto the deployment, or creating a new deployment.

Best thing about Chrome

Okay, I'm still in love with chrome.  zdnet has a write up about the top 5 things in chrome.  My favorite feature (about:stats) didn't make the list but check the rest out:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9878

is sccm client backwards compatible with sms 2003

For those of you wondering, the sccm client is not backwards compatible with sms 2003.  However, the sms 2003 client is backwards compatible with a SCCM environment.  Basic rule of thumb regarding SMS/SCCM is that the highest version must be at the top of the hierarchy.  So if your upgrading, you must either upgrade your central site first, or build a new SCCM site and point your sms central site to the SCCM site as its parent.  Then you work your way down the hierarchy upgrading Parent servers, then child servers, and secondary servers.  Never upgrade a server unless the server above it is already upgraded.  Once you've upgraded your entire environment, figure out how clients are going to determine their management server.  After you've put this in place the last thing to upgrade is the client.

Google Chrome goals

A lot of people are wondering why in the world would Google want to release a webbrowser?  We already have 4 biggies: IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.  A 5th one just further splinters the market and makes life harder on web developers right?  Actually, what Google is trying to do here is increase visibility of the webkit engine that both Chrome and Safari is based upon.  This also happens to be the engine Google has stuck into it's mobile OS Android.  If Google ever wants to see Android succeed, it has to make sure that it displays the web properly.  The only real way to do this, is to get web developers to code and test against it's webkit engine.  By releasing another browser based on webkit, Google may actually increase the overall web presence of webkit and therefore increase usability for it's Android based devices.  I say this is another smart move by Google.

Google Chrome

Today Google announced their new Chrome webbrowser.  http://www.google.com/chrome Based on webkit the same engine that powers safari, iphone, and Google's own Android, chrome is a welcome breath of fresh air.  I've been runing Chrome all day so far and found it very usuable.  I'm even blogging this post from within Chrome.  My biggest complaint?  Google should have made an effort to support plugins.  It'd be even better if they could support existing Firefox Plugins.  I simply can't live without Ad-block plus, and after today I'm sure I'll be back to Firefox due to this one shortcoming.

Time to start over

This past week I found out that one of our management servers had sccm installed on the c:\ drive. You'd think there would be a setting to change the storage location so that the program could still run from c:\. Apparently there is no such option. Only option is a site uninstall and reinstall. Of course if you uninstall, you can't reuse the same site code. Doing so would have dire consequenses including corrupting the site database. Digging around I found a nice article by Anthony Clendenen on removing a secondary site in SMS 2003. The steps outlined by Anthony allow reusing the existing site code. I'd previously used this article to remove and reinstall a Primary 2003 site. After looking at some of the registry keys and file folders on my SCCM site install, I decided to try the same steps on my SCCM primary site. Guess what? It works! Here's the article:
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/8/view.asp?id=9472

MMS 2007

Okay I haven’t posted in a while. I’m sorry. I had a couple of big events come up that took precedence. First I had to setup and administer the computers systems for a small conference (70+ machines). I decided against using SMS for this conference, so I took myself out of the SMS loop. The 2^nd event was the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS 2007). This event is all about SMS and the upcoming Systems Center Family. The Systems Center family includes Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager, Essentials, Virtual Machine Manager, and Capacity Planner. System Center Configuration Manager is the important one here. It’s actually the next version of SMS. SMS v4 will officially be called Systems Center Configuration Manager (SCCM 2007).

At MMS 2007 I learned all about the cool features that SCCM 2007 will be providing. There are tons! If you haven’t yet, get Beta 2 of SCCM 2007. I will be installing it this week and giving a review of my experience. I can tell you that at the SMS 2003 to SCCM 2007 upgrade lab, the process was very easy. MMS 2007 has also convinced me to install SMS SP3 once it’s available. My original plans were to skip SP3 and wait for SCCM 2007. However the additional reports and collections regarding Vista has forced me to reconsider this decision. SP3 is now a must have for me.