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Om Marius A. Skovli

Microsoft Enterprise Client Management Evangelist with: 10+ years experience within Microsoft System Management Solutions Extensive experience across Private and Public Sector Passion for Community Driven work, volunteering within Microsoft technology Great belief that sharing experience within fellow peers is key to creating a sustainable society Strong commitment to System Center User Group Norway as co-founder and current leader I am a technology enthusiast working as a consultant for the consultant company CTGlobal. I have always been passionate about IT and have the last 10 + years worked with Management and Automation within Microsoft technology. Back in 2005/6 I started working with System Management Server (SMS) 2003 and have been working with Enterprise Client Management ever since, where i today focus on helping customers design and implement solutions based on System Center Configuration Manager and/or Enterprise Mobility Suite from Microsoft. Other parts of my work consists of speaking and presenting at different events and seminars, doing research and blog about solutions I find and products I work with. I truly believe in a strong community where knowledge and know-how is essential. Creating creative arenas where it is possible for peers to spread the word about new technologies and solutions is key and as an act on this I co-founded System Center User Group Norway (www.scug.no). SCUG is an initiative where we discuss, preach and present new technologies and solutions in the System Center Space from Microsoft. This is a free arena for everybody to join that is interested in/or enthusiastic about Microsoft Cloud Platform (Enterprise Client Management or Cloud and Datacenter). Specialties: System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM2007-SCCM2012), Enterprise Mobility and Intune, Windows and Windows server deployment.

ConfigMgr: Prerequisite check error when upgradeing to 1810 – SQL Server Configuration for site upgrade failed

So, I guess this is not limited to just when you upgrade from 1806 to 1810, however that was the case when I upgraded a customer the other day. I got the following error when doing the prerequisite check i SCCM prior to an upgrade to 1810 from 1806.   My initial thought was that this was a bit generic without giving proper guidance to fix the issue   SQL Server Configuration for site upgrade Failed Checks if the specified SQL Server meets the minimum requirments for site upgrade   Digging in the log files (CMUpdate.log) I found out that [...]

By |2019-03-31T22:45:24+01:00marts 22nd, 2019|Uncategorized|4 Comments
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Windows Autopilot: 6 things you must consider before ordering a Windows 10 device today

Autopilot, one of the hottest buzzwords within Windows 10 management of 2018, if you ask me. And I think you agree. Why? This small piece of technology has changed the way we look at IT. Not because it revolutionizes every aspect of the way you deliver IT into the hands of our users, but it fundamentally changes an important peace making us think about change and transformation along the way as a synergy. And this makes us ask the question - can we transform other pieces of our IT services delivered to our users. Now, I assume you know what [...]

By |2019-01-31T21:54:32+01:00januar 31st, 2019|Uncategorized|2 Comments
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Set computer name with Autopilot in Windows 1809

A quick blog post to show you that it is now possible to set computer name of an device going through the Out-of-Box experience enabled with Autopilot in Intune! This is new capabilities in Intune which is only available with Windows 10 RS5 1809. This post assume that you have an autopilot profile and that it is already assigned and in use. If not I recommend looking at the links below to get you started with Autopilot. For more information visits these websites: Overview of Windows Autopilot: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-autopilot/windows-10-autopilot Whats new in Autopilot as of 24/9-18: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-IT-Pro-Blog/New-Windows-Autopilot-capabilities-and-expanded-partner-support/ba-p/260430 Now over to the [...]

By |2018-10-03T00:16:29+01:00oktober 3rd, 2018|Automation, Configuration Manager (SCCM), OS Deployment, Windows Client|2 Comments
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Intune: Use PowerShell management extension to enable BitLocker on a modern managed Win10 device

I wrote a blog post back in April on "how to manage BitLocker on a Azure AD Joined Windows 10 Device managed by Intune", where I also wrote a PowerShell script to automate the encryption process for the day that we would get PowerShell support in Intune. Well Microsoft announced in September the Management extension for Intune which basically lets you deploy PowerShell scripts via. Intune to Windows 10 devices. My co-worker Peter Daalmans wrote a great blog post about it right after, where he explained in more detail about the extension. I have a link for that post at [...]

By |2017-12-06T12:59:51+01:00december 6th, 2017|Automation, Powershell, Scripting, Uncategorized, Windows Client|4 Comments
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Windows 10: Modern Management – Automate OSD with a USB drive and a Provisioning Package

First of all this is not a blog post on how you create an provisioning package or how that works. However I will link a few other post from Microsoft to get you started if that is something you are looking for. So jump to the end of this post for a select few great posts on the topic. If you are using Autopilot, then you are using Autopilot, good for you! :) There may be situations where you want to combine provisioning packages and Autopilot. I will explain this further in an upcoming blogpost about Autopilot. Now, in this [...]

By |2017-11-15T15:30:53+01:00november 12th, 2017|Uncategorized|Kommentarer lukket til Windows 10: Modern Management – Automate OSD with a USB drive and a Provisioning Package
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Intune: Reporting Part 1 – create basic inventory report directly from Intune Console

I am a ConfigMgr consultant by heart where I have spent most of my IT-career designing and building ConfigMgr Solutions for customers. And everyone that has worked with ConfigMgr knows that you can report on basically anything from the clients managed by ConfigMgr. If you don't see the data, the reason is probable that the the Agent is not configured to harvest it. Well for the past 3-4 years I have also been working with Intune where the reporting capabilities has been a bit limited, especially devices managed through mdm, however the reporting has capabilities been greatly improved over the [...]

By |2017-11-13T00:23:52+01:00oktober 31st, 2017|Azure, Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)|4 Comments
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ConfigMgr: Issues setting up new MP’s? Check your SPN’s!

An old topic, revisited; This is just a quick blog post to inform any in the same situation as myself where a customer had some issues setting up 5 MP's at a customer. Now we all know that when setting up an new MP, or over time we may get some errors returned to us in one of the many log files monitoring the Management Point service in ConfigMgr. This is because MPs has quite a few prerequisites that either needs to be in place before it functions properly or needs TLC over time. The other day I was at [...]

By |2017-11-13T00:22:16+01:00oktober 30th, 2017|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|5 Comments
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ConfigMgr and Flexera Software CSI (3. Party Patch Management): Install the CSI Plugin

This is a quick and dirty how-to guide as I have a couple of customer who have asked for the same – how to Install the CSI Plugin in order to Connect the Flexera CSI to your ConfigMgr/WSUS/SUP infrastructure where you get the ability to monitor 3rd party vulnerabilities and remediate any threats by patching or removing software. This is a great management tool addon to your WSUS/ConfigMgr infrastructure and is a must for a complete patch management solution. If you are new to Flexera Software CSI I suggest you go to the following links where you can read up [...]

By |2017-05-14T18:56:16+01:00maj 14th, 2017|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|Kommentarer lukket til ConfigMgr and Flexera Software CSI (3. Party Patch Management): Install the CSI Plugin
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Set Desktop and Lock Screen wallpaper with Intune in Windows 10

This is a quick blog post to show you can set this fairly easily using Intune. Intune requires you to point to a URL for the wallpaper which at first seems a bit odd, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you have solutions like OneDrive. What am I talking about? Well, find a suitable wallpaper and place it on your Sharepoint OneDrive or Personal OneDrive. Then share the wallpaper and create a public viewing link like so   Next, test the link by pasting the URL into your browser and take a look at the result. It [...]

By |2017-11-15T18:59:49+01:00maj 11th, 2017|Azure, Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Office 365, Windows Client|16 Comments
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How to manage Bitlocker on a Azure AD Joined Windows 10 Device managed by Intune.

When joining a computer to AAD either manually or by using a provisioning package, Bitlocker will be enabled automatically if your device has the necessary prerequisites. However in the case that Bitlocker is disabled this is how you enable Bitlocker, save the Bitlocker Key Protector to ADD (also known as the recovery key) and recover the key in the case you need it. So this blog post is both for the end-user and IT-pro I guess. In this scenario we have configured a Device Compliance Policy in Intune where we require Encryption of data storage on devices and sent the [...]

By |2017-11-15T18:57:43+01:00april 25th, 2017|Application Virtualization (App-V), Azure, Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Office 365, Windows Client|28 Comments
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Windows 10: Upgrade the edition with Intune in the new Azure Portal

Most professional PC’s delivered today is delivered with Windows 10 Pro (out of the box) which is a really good Operating System, covering most use-cases. However in the world of BYOD and CYOD (Bring your Own / Choose your Own Device) companies, enterprises, goverments, schools etc. often want to upgrade to either Enterprise or Education since these editions of Windows 10 are more feature rich and has a couple of enhancements compared to Pro. Luckly, changeing the SKU does not involve a reinstallation or an major upgrade of the OS. And from Windows 10 1607 (Anniversary Update) you could go [...]

By |2017-04-10T08:56:31+01:00april 10th, 2017|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Windows Client|1 Kommentar
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Windows 10 1703 Creators Update: First impressions

Windows 10 creators update is out and I wanted to create a quick blog of the initial experience installing and enrolling it into one of my Azure Active Directory (AAD) test tenants. The initial installation is more or less the same as before, but we know for a while that Microsoft will improve the OoBE (Out of Box Experience) where it now has a new nicer flow and UI. It’s very interesting to see how Microsoft is investing in these types of features and it tells us (in my opinion) how Microsoft looks at the future of Device/Windows deployment and [...]

By |2017-04-06T11:47:03+01:00april 6th, 2017|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Windows Client|Kommentarer lukket til Windows 10 1703 Creators Update: First impressions
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Conditional access with ConfigMgr+Intune and On-Premises Exchange

Conditional Access in either a Cloud-only or Hybrid scenario is a great way to control data by saying we do not allow you to access Corporate Email without enrolling the device to a Corporate MDM solution where Data Protection Policies will be applied. This is in my opinion the best compromise where we let the user be productive where they get the ability to access corporate data on any device, anywhere, where we at the same time have control over the device, forcing security and compliance policies, encrypting data, deploy (LoB) apps and las but not least have the ability [...]

By |2016-04-25T08:41:46+01:00april 25th, 2016|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)|3 Comments
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Microsoft Azure AD Connect not syncing at a cycle

Recently I had a customer who had implemented the latest version of Azure AD Connect (v. 1.1.119.0) which was available in February 2016. In this version Microsoft changed a lot the make it easier to administrate and convenient to use. They also added some great new features like! Reduction in the sync interval to keep your Azure AD in sync with AD on-premises more quickly Support for automatic upgrades Ability to switch between sign-in methods through the wizard to enable faster pilots Support for Domain and OU filtering within the wizard Read more here: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/ad/2016/02/18/azure-ad-connect-1-1-is-now-ga-faster-sync-times-automatic-upgrades-and-more/  Well as it turned out, [...]

By |2016-04-10T14:22:45+01:00april 10th, 2016|Azure, Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)|1 Kommentar
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Community Web page to help corporate users enroll their devices!

Guidence on how you can enroll your device and gain access to your corporate data and applications: This web page is created by the community for the community to help corporate users to efficiently enroll their devices into an Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Solution. Businesses can use this webpage as an How-To for their users and link it to their existing documentation. The site covers: Microsoft Windows 10 Devices Apple iOS Devices Google Android Devices Visit the page by going clickin here: www.enrollyourdevice.com Also check out the Microsoft EMS Resources App https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh6j3fq and YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbf6dOWcNhRgLHDEXJWqiNw for more information about Microsoft [...]

By |2016-04-04T15:03:56+01:00april 4th, 2016|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)|Kommentarer lukket til Community Web page to help corporate users enroll their devices!
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Create Boundaries in ConfigMgr based on your DHCP-Scope using PowerShell

Sample script at the end for this article. I was recently at a customer that wanted to add new boundaries based on their DHCP-Scopes. This would be a very easy task if they only had a few, but they had well over a two-hundred scopes so I decided to create a PowerShell script to do the Job. One thing you need to bear in mind when doing this is that a DHCP-Scope can range from 10.10.10.1 – 10.10.10.254 which means when creating these boundaries that all client in this range are supported, no one is left out. However, a DHCP [...]

By |2016-03-26T14:18:34+01:00marts 26th, 2016|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|4 Comments
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Upgrade SCCM 1511 to 1602 when Service Connection Point is set to Offline, on-demand

Last week Microsoft announced 1602 for SCCM Current Branch Production Environments: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/configmgrteam/2016/03/11/now-available-update-1602-for-system-center-configuration-manager/ Receiving updates to your System Center Configuration Manager Server(s) is today more important than ever in order to have your SCCM environment keep track with Windows 10 and the ever fast paste with Cloud development where new features are added constantly. To make the updates experience of your SCCM solution as smooth as possible Microsoft has introduced dynamic updates for SCCM. This basically means that you will get a notice in your SCCM Administration console that a new update is available for installation. But there is a but, [...]

By |2016-03-19T22:25:02+01:00marts 19th, 2016|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|7 Comments
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OMS/EMS Seminar March 2016: Enterprise Mobility Suite Session Notes and slides

Hi First and foremost, thanks to all attendees for a great day on Wednesday. Lots of great questions and discussions and to all of you who is wondering what happened to my girlfriend’s phone – well I had to un-enroll it the morning after!  For those of you who are waiting for the EMS-book that Kent is writing together with Peter Daalmans, it is not to long until it is published so stay tuned! I will update this blog post with link to the book when it is out.. Download the slide deck: EMS Microsoft EMS Resources app is free and [...]

By |2017-08-22T10:27:14+01:00marts 10th, 2016|Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Events, Visualization|1 Kommentar
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December 11: Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) Resources at your fingertips

I know it's a pompous title, but that still the idea behind what I want to show next. As an IT-Pro I am used to staying up to date on the latest technology that I am working with. And with On-premises solutions like traditional ConfigMgr implementations, staying up to date is not too hard with a little bit of effort since new features and updates are not added daily as opposed to what is going on in the Cloud. Now for some time now I have been working with Cloud services like Microsoft Intune and eventually EMS after the suite [...]

By |2015-12-11T17:14:00+01:00december 11th, 2015|Azure, Configuration Manager (SCCM), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Windows Client|3 Comments
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December 2nd: Part 2: Uninstall Java (or any other software) with ConfigMgr Compliance Baselines

It's December 2nd and Christmas is just around the corner! Yesterday Jakob kicked off the Coretech December Calendar with a great post about "Triggering a webhook from a SharePoint workflow using Out-of-the-box Activities" (Check out his blog post here: http://bit.ly/1N16fte).  That was the  first, this is the second post in the Coretech blog series that will continue until December 24th - Christmas Eve! :) In Part 1 (http://bit.ly/1PlnDPr) I explained how you can utilize ConfigMgr Compliance Baselines for uninstalling software like Java, Adobe etc. with the help of PowerShell and WMI. Well in Part 1 we used the Win32_Product class which is not recommended [...]

By |2015-12-02T14:08:00+01:00december 2nd, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM), General info, Powershell, Scripting & Development|7 Comments
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Get the latest post from the Coretech blog the moment it is published

Add the CTGlobal blog as an RSS Feed in Outlook Staying up to date is important as IT evolves and changes so rapidly. For the employees of Coretech, blogging about the products we work with and solutions we create or discover is a great way to stay current. Where we at the same time build a information database where others, both inside and outside of Coretech, can benefit from. This is key for us in Coretech and in this post I will show you how you can get the latest posts from the Coretech Blog the moment the post is [...]

By |2017-08-22T10:05:11+01:00november 30th, 2015|General info|Kommentarer lukket til Get the latest post from the Coretech blog the moment it is published
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Part 1: Uninstall Java (or any other software) with ConfigMgr Compliance Baselines

Compliance Items and Compliance Baselines in ConfigMgr is so powerful! And with some PowerShell magic you can almost use it to do anything you like on a Windows based computer – Only your imagination that will be the showstopper! Here I will show how you can uninstall software using WMI and Compliance Items in SCCM. However, it is important that you read the following articles as the uninstallation process uses win32_product WMI class which is known for its evilness. Thanks to Kaido, Jürg and Torsten for pointing this one out. A updated post as been created using a better and more [...]

By |2015-11-25T14:19:41+01:00november 25th, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM), General info, Powershell|9 Comments
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Microsoft EMS News App for Windows 10 and Windows Phone 10

Update: The app has now changed name and is published to the Microsoft store under the name Microsoft EMS Resources An updated blog post is published here: https://blog.ctglobalservices.com/mas/december-11-microsoft-enterprise-mobility-suite-ems-resources-at-your-fingertips/ As an IT-Pro I am used to staying up to date on the latest technology that I am working with. And with On-premises solutions like traditional ConfigMgr implementations, staying up to to date is not too hard with a little bit of effort since new features and updates are not added daily as opposed to what is going on in the Cloud. The cloud is evolving so fast with new features and services added daily [...]

By |2015-11-11T20:20:28+01:00november 11th, 2015|Azure, Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Office 365|6 Comments
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Troubleshooting: An error occurred when creating the WSUS Signing Certificate (Secunia)

Lately I have been doing some Secunia integrations with System Center 2012 R2: Configuration Manager (SCCM/ConfigMgr 2012). When you are setting up the connector between Secunia CSI and WSUS one of the first things the wizard is asking you to do is to Configure a WSUS Self-Signed Certificate, the WSUS signing certificate is required to create and install local packages. Without it, only packages from Microsoft Update will be installed. How-ever this time I got this error when trying to 'Automatically create and install certificate'  during the Connector Wizard: An error occurred when creating the WSUS Signing Certificate Now this [...]

By |2015-10-20T20:14:46+01:00oktober 20th, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Security|1 Kommentar
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