Websites:
http://connect.microsoft.com – Connect to the CM2012 Beta program
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ff657840 – Configuration Manager 2012 download
http://innovation.connect.microsoft.com/configmgrbeta/discussions – Configuration Manager 2012 discussion list
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=083f45ca-1ede-4f7a-be74-77854c3a9b01&displaylang=en – SCUP 2011 download
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b64c2029-0f56-4606-ba0c-ea92e03541f5 – FEP2012 beta download http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/default.aspx – System Center homepage
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/configuration-manager/cm-vnext-beta.aspx – Latest info on CM2012
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/cm/gg721914 – CM2012 videos 
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/configurationmanager/ – Configuration Manager News groups
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configurationmanager/en/us/default.aspx – Config Mgr. homepage
http://www.myitforum.com/ – Great community
http://www.smsexpert.com/ – Information about MOF editing
http://www.1e.com/ – Config Mgr. addons
http://blogs.technet.com/configmgrteam/default.aspx – System Center Config Mgr. team blog
http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2010/11/30/configmgr-2007-antivirus-scan-and-exclusion-recommendations.aspx – ConfigMgr 2007 Antivirus Scan and Exclusion Recommendations
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg699359.aspx#CD_OOBM – New Out of Band Management features in Configuration Manager 2012
http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Links.aspx – OS Deployment links
http://www.bdna.com/page/index/sccm-guru-webcast-series – webcasts on SQL, CM2012, CM07 and more 
http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/jsandys/archive/2010/12/30/updated-configmgr-startup-script.aspx – CM07 Startup script
http://www.enhansoft.com/index.aspx – Download free reports
http://www.odysseysoftware.com/MDMPRODUCTS/AthenaforMobileDeviceManagement/AthenaConfigurationManager.aspx – Extend support for mobile devices 

Tools:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/tools/scripto2.mspx – Scriptomatic
http://www.myitforum.com/myITWiki/SCCMTools.ashx – SCCM Right click tools and more
http://www.myitforum.com/inc/upload/12336RegKeyToMOF.zip – Tool from Mark Cochrane to assist you in creating the correct entries in Configuration.MOF and SMS_def.mof
http://www.1e.com/Downloads/FreeTools/Index.aspx – 1E free tools (package migration tool, WMI tool, Service Window tool and more)
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/cstauffer/archive/2009/03/06/sccm-http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3993 – Adobe Customization Wizard
http://3d2f.com/tags/magic/packet/wol/ – Apps for testing Wake On LAN
https://blog.ctglobalservices.com/kea/updating-the-package-source-in-configuration-manager-2007/ – Utility to update the package source in CM2007
http://www.shavlik.com/scupdates.aspx – Shavlik SCUPdates
https://blog.ctglobalservices.com/kea/asset-intelligence-3rd-party-software-utility/ – Asset Intelligence tool 
https://blog.ctglobalservices.com/kea/configuration-manager-shutdown-utility/ – Shutdown utility 

Other sites:
http://www.truesec.com/news – Sign up for the TrueSec newsletter

Blogs:
http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/default.aspx – The ConfigMgr. support team
http://blogs.technet.com/wemd_ua_-_sms_writing_team/ – The ConfigMgr. writers team

News in Configuration Manager 2012 RC

Below you will find a list of the news (that we now about today) will be in the upcoming release

Setup

  • Improved multi-lingual support, will ask for language during install. Will download and install.
  • Data Replication Service, changed from SQL transactional service
  • Secondary site added content routing
  • SQL Configuration Option
  • can specify Ports and Instance
  • MP Replica support,
  • SQL replication support just like in CM07

Performance

  • MSIT have more than 200.000 clients running beta 2
  • State and status messages, (alerting)
  • Application catalog improved
  • Collection updates,
  • custom collections do not by default have delta updates

Console Changes

  • Administration Workspace and Assets and Compliance switches place
  • Searching via dates, x number of days
  • Reporting, will be grouped as in CM07
  • Role Based Administration for reports.
  • Application administrator will only see reports that are available for the Application administrator.
  • You can use BROWSE when adding users – WOW, no more NT 4.0 Smiley Not only can you browse, but you can also verify that the account works in your environment. For client push you can connect to admin$ on a host pc in your environment

Application catalog & Software Center

  • Application catalog, can modify the color scheme
  • Software Center, UI changes filter – drop down like in CM07
  • Show/hide optional deployment
  • Update Catalog tables on a schedule

Monitoring

  • Mail subscriptions on Alerts

Discovery

  • Computer discovery introduces Stale computer filtering. You can filter system that are not active in Active Direcotry based on password change and/or lasted logons.
  • IP subnets becomes IP address ranges.
  • AD forest discovery will create IP ranges instead of IPsubnets.
  • System Group Discovery is removed. (OU, Nested group is now part of AD system discovery)
  • Security group discovery is renamed to Group Discovery
  • Delta discovery will find group changes even on existing objects. Removal from a group will also be part of the discovery process.
  • Domain functional level must be Windows 2003 or higher

Client Settings

  • Client agent settings can be imported/exported

Settings Management

  • Baseline remediation’s can now be limited to maintenance windows.
  • Baselines can generate OpsMgr. Alerts
  • Create dynamic collection from baseline compliance

Client Health

  • Check now checks for 21 settings.
  • Automatic remediation can be turned off in registry on the client
  • Client health state is now real time data

Remote control

  • Disabled by default
  • Remote control viewer shortcut in the ConfigMgr. program group
  • Added support for Windows 7 Sp1 etc.
Collection design for Software Update Management

1 Update group pr. month with x-number of deployments (pilot deployment, workstation deployment, server manual and server automatic) The server automatic collection looks like this:

image

Includes the different maintenance “child” collections and excludes all server that are member of the manual update colleciton.

Inventory files

To prevent software inventory in a certain folder/drive create a hidden file called skpwi.dat and place the file in the root of the folder/drive.

To prevent the Inventory agent from deleting inventory xml files from the client; create a file called archive_reports.sms and place it in the hardware inventory temp folder %systemroot%\system32\ccm\inventory\temp\. This can be very useful when you want to track the size of each inventory file.

Troubleshooting client deployment

Site server log file:
  • CCM.log – check for errors related to copying the ccmsetup.exe file to the client
Client log files:
  • The installation process
    • ccmseup.log
    • client.msi.log
  • The site assignment process
    • clientidmanager.log
    • clientlocation.log
  • The policy process
    • policyagent.log
    • policyevaluator.log
WMI related errors

Before you start deleting and rebuilding the WMI repository check this in the listed order. If one step works the repository works

  • Perform some basic WMI testing – http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/06/22/basic-wmi-testing.aspx
  • Check DCOM, WMI permissions and GPO settings
  • Open a command prompt with admin rights and type wmic computersystem get model
  • Open a command prompt with admin rights and type winmgmt /verifyrepository
  • Open a command prompt with admin rights and type winmgmt /Resetrepository
Collections:

Servers that haven’t scanned for hw inventory in 7 days or more:
select *  from  SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_WORKSTATION_STATUS on SMS_G_System_WORKSTATION_STATUS.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion like "%server%" and (DateDiff(day, SMS_G_System_WORKSTATION_STATUS.LastHardwareScan, GetDate()) >=7)

Inventory

Flush local inventory data on client:
WMIC /namespace:\\root\ccm\invagt path inventoryActionStatus where InventoryActionID="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001}" DELETE /NOINTERACTIVE

Reports:

Software installed the last 7 days:

SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT
        dbo.v_R_System.Name0,
        dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.DisplayName0,
        dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0,
        DATEDIFF(Day, CONVERT(date,dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0), GETDATE()) AS [days since installed]

FROM
        dbo.v_R_System INNER JOIN
        dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS ON
        dbo.v_R_System.ResourceID = dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.ResourceID

WHERE
        (SELECT ISDATE(dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0)) = 1

GROUP BY
        dbo.v_R_System.Name0,
        dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.DisplayName0,
        dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0,
        DATEDIFF(Day, CONVERT(date,dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0), GETDATE())

HAVING
        (
        (CASE WHEN (ISDATE(dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0))=1 THEN
                (DATEDIFF(Day, CONVERT(date,dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0), GETDATE()))
        ELSE    500
        END) > 0 AND
        (CASE WHEN (ISDATE(dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0))=1 THEN
                (DATEDIFF(Day, CONVERT(date,dbo.v_GS_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.InstallDate0), GETDATE()))
        ELSE    500
        END) < 7
        )

Windows 7 client up time

SELECT     os.Caption0 AS ‘Operating System’, cs.Name0 AS Name, DATEDIFF(hour, os.LastBootUpTime0, ws.LastHWScan) AS ‘Uptime (in Hours)’, CONVERT(varchar(20),
                      os.LastBootUpTime0, 100) AS ‘Last Reboot Date/Time’, CONVERT(varchar(20), ws.LastHWScan, 100) AS ‘Last Hardware Inventory’
FROM         v_GS_WORKSTATION_STATUS AS ws LEFT OUTER JOIN
                      v_GS_OPERATING_SYSTEM AS os ON ws.ResourceID = os.ResourceID INNER JOIN
                      v_GS_COMPUTER_SYSTEM AS cs ON cs.ResourceID = os.ResourceID
WHERE     (os.Caption0 LIKE ‘%Windows 7%’) AND (ws.LastHWScan <> 0) AND (cs.Name0 IS NOT NULL)
ORDER BY Name

Backup

As part of the backup process, Configuration Manager will look for a file called AfterBackup.bat. in the .\Microsoft Configuration Manager\inboxes\smsbkup.box. To copy the backup files to another location, create an new file called AfterBackup.bat with this command:

Robocopy D:\CM2012.bck \\File01\backup\CM01 /MIR

For CM07 servers you can also add this lines to generate a list of install patches:

reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Updates\System Center Configuration Manager 2007\SP2" /s > D:\CM2007.bck\CMpatches.txt

This will copy the backup files to another server share.

SQL Replication

Uses DRS (data Replication Services), replication method based on the Service Broker. It’s a custom replication method for ConfigMgr. 2012 use the Replication Link Analyzer for troubleshooting.