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SCSM & SCO – Management Pack Transfer Tool Beta 3 – Freeware!

New version out! a few bugs have been fixed, and the mappings are now kept properly! (see changelog below)   Download from TechNet Gallery   Have you ever tried to transfer some Request Offerings that contains runbooks from one environment to the other? You will notice that is it not possible by default. Problem is that the links to the runbooks do not work anymore since all the runbooks has been re-imported and have been assigned new IDs. by using this easy 4 step procedure you can accomplish a successful transfer!   How to (also in ReadMe): Step 1 – [...]

By |2014-01-29T15:03:04+01:00januar 29th, 2014|Automation, Service Manager (SCSM)|6 Comments
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AD-Connector – Running with Error: Stopping at 92% – Object instance not set to an instance of an object

Yesterday I encountered an error I haven’t seen before when trying to set up a new AD Connector in SCSM. The connector always stopped at 92% and generated the following error in the eventlog: Data synchronization failed by DefaultCache.MomStore.ADUsers_Manager.DefaultCache.ADConnector.5f4e989660d749b6b420fb4532c5ed9a:Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ServiceManager.Connector.Sql.DataConnectorSql. Exception type:NullReferenceException Exception message:Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. StackTrace: at Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ServiceManager.Linking.Consumer.OperationalStore.DataSetTransformer.ComputeManagerDeletes(Dictionary`2 result, IList`1 existingManagers, Dictionary`2 userToNewManager) at Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ServiceManager.Linking.Consumer.OperationalStore.DataSetTransformer.DeleteObsoleteManagerRelationships(ManagementPackRelationship relationshipType, Dictionary`2 result, EnterpriseManagementGroup managementGroup) at Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ServiceManager.Linking.Consumer.OperationalStore.DataSetTransformer.TransformToEnterpriseManagementObjects(EnterpriseManagementGroup managementGroup, ManagementPackType storeType, SessionSettings sessionSettings, Boolean useStagingSDK, Boolean isGRCSolution) at Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ServiceManager.Linking.Consumer.OperationalStore.OperationalStoreConsumer.ConsumeData(DataSet data, SessionSettings sessionSettings) at Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ServiceManager.Connector.Datacenter.SessionHost.DataSync()   As I couldn’t find anything on the net, I started digging into the error. [...]

By |2014-01-29T10:47:38+01:00januar 29th, 2014|Service Manager (SCSM)|1 Kommentar
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Upgrading to SCOM 2012 R2

Over the past months I have collected a number of “pitfalls” when upgrading to R2 – please be sure to have a backup before you start and check the following before you begin upgrading to SCOM 2012 R2 Installation Account must be a member of the local administrators group on: a. SQL Server (both in cluster or always-on) b. Management Servers c. Reporting Servers Install Account must be a member of the Sysadmin role on the SQL Server On the SQL Server the Modal Database must not be more than 100 MB The Operationsmanager database must have 50% free space [...]

By |2014-01-28T03:56:01+01:00januar 28th, 2014|Operations Manager (SCOM)|1 Kommentar
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Auto activate Trusted Platform Module on Fujitsu computers using DeskView and MDT/SCCM

Recently I have been working on a way to auto activate the TPM chip on Fujitsu computers during the Operating System Deployment. Until recently, this has been limited to customers that have purchased DeskView advanced client from Fujitsu. Now, it is possible to work around this issue, and the way I have done it before is to use manage-bde.exe to activate TPM and BiosSet.exe to set a BIOS-password. However, using the manufacture own software to do everything is always considered best practice and with a script it is now possible. First the challenge: When using DeskView to activate TPM you [...]

By |2017-08-22T10:35:41+01:00januar 27th, 2014|Configuration Manager (SCCM), OS Deployment|7 Comments
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Why I can’t convert my Windows Server 2012 R2 Core to GUI

Let’s assume that you installed some time ago one Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Core and you have installed also latest Windows Updates to that server and this server does not have an internet connection. Here are the updates that are installed In one day you discover that you need to add graphical user interface and you execute the following command Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell -Source:wim:D:\Sources\install.wim:2 You will see that it reaches to 68% and fails with following error Install-WindowsFeature : The request to add or remove features on the specified server failed. Installation of one or more roles, role services, or [...]

By |2014-01-23T11:53:34+01:00januar 23rd, 2014|Operating Systems, Powershell, Windows Server|18 Comments
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Installing a Domain Controller on Windows Server 2012 R2 Core

In my previous post I showed how you can install Active Directory Domain Services on Windows Server Core and in this post I´m going to show how you can add an additional Domain Controller to your environment because best practice recommends that you have at least two of them. To add an additional Domain Controller we need to do following: 1. Rename the server 2. Set the IP and DNS address 3. Join the server to domain 4. Install Active Directory Domain Services Server Role 5. Deploy the Domain Controller   Before you continue I recommend to read my first [...]

By |2014-01-21T14:18:27+01:00januar 21st, 2014|Powershell, Windows Server|2 Comments
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Installing Active Directory Domain Services on Windows Server 2012 R2 Core

Installing Active Directory Domain Services on Windows Server Core is really easy. You only need to run 8 commands and your Domain Controller is ready. These steps are: 1. Rename the server 2. Set the IP and DNS address 3. Install Active Directory Domain Services Server Role 4. Promote the server to a Domain Controller Let’s Get Started :) I assume that you already have one Windows Server Core installed. If you log in, then it automatically runs command prompt. To get to PowerShell, then just type PowerShell.exe and you are ready to configure your Domain Controller. I don’t like [...]

By |2014-01-21T11:56:47+01:00januar 21st, 2014|Windows Server|12 Comments
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Dealing with reboot pending clients in Configuration Manager 2012

Guess most of you are struggling with troubleshooting software update compliance and installing applications in Configuration Manager 2012. What I have found, is that clients in a reboot pending state often is the root cause to the problems. In previous posts I have described how you can use tools like Coretech Shutdown Utility to automatically restart computers that has been in a reboot pending state for X number of hours/days.  The information about the reboot pending state is stored in WMI Root\ccm\ClientSDK namespace as illustrated here with the Coretech WMI & PowerShell explorer: Identify reboot state using PowerShell Launch PowerShell [...]

By |2014-01-19T17:14:28+01:00januar 19th, 2014|Configuration Manager (SCCM), General info|19 Comments
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NIC 2014 – Deck and links from my ConfigMgr Community session

Once again, to all who has ever contributed to the community – We salute you – keep on working and know that you are making a difference for 1000’s of IT pros “out there”. Download deck Just some of the community tools: Infrastructure and Client Management Johan Arwidmark ConfigMgr R2 Hydration Kit - http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Research/tabid/62/EntryId/113/The-Hydration-Kit-for-ConfigMgr-2012-R2-is-available-for-download.aspx Mikael Nyström System center Hydration Kit - http://deploymentbunny.com/2013/01/04/hydration-kit-v3-is-out/ Startup Script -http://blog.configmgrftw.com/?page_id=349 Right Click tools - http://psrightclicktools.codeplex.com/releases/view/104529 Right click took - http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/09/21/sccm-rctools/ Client Center - https://sccmclictr.codeplex.com/ David’s Inventory Script PowerShell - http://www.david-obrien.net/2013/06/20/huge-powershell-inventory-script-for-configmgr-2012/ Garth’s Inventory Script vbSript - http://www.enhansoft.com/pages/downloads.aspx CM12Healthcheck toolkit - https://www.rflsystems.co.uk/sccm-2012-r2-healthcheck-toolkit/ ConfigMgr 2012 Registration Request - [...]

By |2014-01-19T12:01:17+01:00januar 19th, 2014|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Events, General info|1 Kommentar
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Nordic Infrastructure Conference 2014

Conference done = everybody’s happy about hopefully new and good knowledge – I did two sessions – One called Be a Hero another one called Create a ScomBot in Azure – Unfortunately they didnt record them – But I have attached both Slideshows to this blog. Agenda for Be a Hero: Introduction to Services Ready Steady – GO! Present SLO and SLA in a Dashboard Bottlenecks – SCOM Performance Whats New in R2 Use cases Agenda for Crete a SCOMBot for Windows Azure Automating everything Internal SCOM Monitoring Real world sample Using and Monitoring Azure Global Service Monitoring Visual Studio [...]

By |2014-01-18T14:35:39+01:00januar 18th, 2014|Operations Manager (SCOM)|1 Kommentar
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NIC 2014 – Slides and Software (Runbooks, MPs, Tools)

I have just completed my 2 sessions at NIC2014. As promised i have uploaded my slides and extras Runbooks Management Packs Tools there might be glitches and mistakes in the runbooks, so do not hesitate to contact me [download id="190"] [download id="191"] [download id="192"]

By |2014-01-16T16:14:52+01:00januar 16th, 2014|Automation, Events|Kommentarer lukket til NIC 2014 – Slides and Software (Runbooks, MPs, Tools)
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Capture output from command line tools with PowerShell

A simple task and then again not A customer asked me if it was possible to grab output from a command and analyze the output afterwards. In the particular case he needs to call a telnet session and check if there was a proper response from the server. The easy solution and then again not The very simple solution would be to start the command from PowerShell, redirecting the output to a file, wait for the process to finish and then read the file content. But in this case the process would not end on its own, as the telnet [...]

By |2018-01-24T23:02:52+01:00januar 16th, 2014|Powershell|9 Comments
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Visual Studio Web Test – without Visual Studio Ultimate

Using the Web Application Transaction Monitor is absolutely one of my favorites in SCOM. Adding GSM to this is nothing but brilliant. I know a lot of companies that wants to monitor their websites from outside the organization, and GSM does the job. But… It is not possible to create a Web App. Transaction monitor with GSM out of the box in SCOM. To do this one needs Visual Studio Ultimate. This is not one of the cheap ones. As a workaround one can you Fiddler2 and Notepad, which does the job. When using Fiddler2 you get a big load [...]

By |2014-01-13T11:34:30+01:00januar 13th, 2014|Operations Manager (SCOM)|2 Comments
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Error enrolling Apple MAC OS X 10.9.1 client in Configuration Manager 2012 R2

Been spending a few good hours trying to get the super enterprise friendly operating system Apple Mac OS X 10.9.1 (In Denmark we really use irony a lot!). There a some good blog post on how to configure MAC support that I advice you all to follow and if you are working with latest version Maverick 10.9.1 I strongly advise you to read this blog post from Yvette -http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2013/12/16/mac-os-x-10-9-support-for-sc-2012-config-manager-clients.aspx Here is what I did, the error I saw and how I fixed it. Configuring Apple MAC support according to Technet Enrolled the client on OS X version 10.9.1 (which is [...]

By |2014-01-05T12:26:00+01:00januar 5th, 2014|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|1 Kommentar
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Visualization – Put SLA on a Group

A group in SCOM contains anything: Servers, websites, databases and/or network devices. Normally you are using the group to do views, overrides, disables or as base for notification. But a nice feature is to visualize this Group objects in a way where you are able to do a Rollup of all the objects in the group to present it in the new Coretech Dashboard or give it an SLA. To present the group follow this step-by-step blog.   Logon to the SCOM Server and start the SCOM Console Click Authoring Right click Groups and create a new group called “Grp.All [...]

By |2013-12-30T09:55:04+01:00december 30th, 2013|Operations Manager (SCOM)|Kommentarer lukket til Visualization – Put SLA on a Group
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Set-SCSMTemplateWithActivities powershell script

UPDATE 02-01-2014: Fixed some issues in script   When dealing with the cmdlet: Set-SCSMTemplate in SMLets, you might have noticed that if you apply a template with activities, the prefix of the ID’s (e.g. RA300 or MA250) is all missing. And it’s the same issue if done via the SDK or Orchestrator. One workaround, described by Lee Berg here: http://www.leealanberg.com/blog/2013/03/13/scsm-automated-service-request-smlets-creation-issues-and-work-arrounds/ is to modify the management pack that contains the template, and then insert the prefix like this: MA{0}. This approach works, but can be quite cumbersome as it takes time to do and also “locks” the template so any modification [...]

By |2013-12-27T15:05:28+01:00december 27th, 2013|Powershell, Scripting & Development, Service Manager (SCSM)|20 Comments
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SCO/SCSM 2012: Approval does not work from portal when review activity was created by runbook/script/SDK!

Today i had this weird problem.   The Review activities i created from my orchestrator runbook, did not work! I was able to approve, but they never completed! But this was only the case when approving from the portal. It worked as expected from the console!   After some research i managed to find the problem: Approval Condition was NULL! This means that the Review activity will never complete.   So why did it work from the console? Well you see, the default dropdown value for the “approval condition” is unanimous! and therefore, whenever i opened it in the consoel [...]

By |2013-12-20T11:32:47+01:00december 20th, 2013|Automation, Service Manager (SCSM)|5 Comments
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How to add Configuration Manager Distribution Point Remotely with PowerShell

If you are trying to add a Configuration Manager Distribution Point remotely you may end up with issue: WARNING: The self-signed certificate could not be created successfully Validation of input parameters failed. Cannot Continue Code example Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock { #Step 1 Import-Module $env:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH.Replace("\bin\i386","\bin\configurationmanager.psd1") #Step 2 $SiteCode = Get-PSDrive -PSProvider CMSITE #Step 3 Set-Location "$($SiteCode.Name):\" #Step 4 Add-CMDistributionPoint -SiteSystemServerName TestServer.corp.viamonstra.com -SiteCode $SiteCode.Name ` -ClientConnectionType Intranet -MinimumFreeSpaceMB 50 -PrimaryContentLibraryLocation Automatic ` -SecondaryContentLibraryLocation Automatic -PrimaryPackageShareLocation Automatic -EnablePxeSupport ` -SecondaryPackageShareLocation Automatic -CertificateExpirationTimeUtc ((Get-Date).AddYears(100)) -ErrorAction STOP } -ComputerName CM01.corp.viamonstra.com If you take same code and run it locally on your Primary Site Server, then it [...]

By |2013-12-18T10:17:21+01:00december 18th, 2013|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Powershell, Scripting & Development|3 Comments
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FAQ for Coretech SCOM Dashboard

Installation Q: Which rights does the account running the Application Pool need? A: The account running the Application Pool must be member of the "Operations Manager Read-only Operators" group in SCOM. Furthermore, the account needs write permission to the CTOMDashboard folder   Q: What are the prerequisites? A: The SCOM Operations Console and Internet Information Services must be installed on the server   Q: When i install, i receive "1001 . Object reference not set to an instance of an object" A: You might receive this when using another website than the Default Web Site when installing. Please use the Default Web Site until [...]

By |2013-12-17T10:24:01+01:00december 17th, 2013|Operations Manager (SCOM)|1 Kommentar
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See overrides for a period

Ever wondered the best way to see which overrides created in your Management Group the last 7 days? This solution is pretty easy: 1. Click My Workspace 2. RightClick and click New.Overrides Summary View 3. Add conditions and give it a name 4. Here you go – Overrides for the last week:   Have a great december and remember to download our new Dashboard… Kåre

By |2013-12-11T13:36:10+01:00december 11th, 2013|Operations Manager (SCOM)|2 Comments
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SCOM 2012 Web Console prompts for credentials – new

  When accessing the web console from the server hosting the web site there is no problem, but when accessing it from another server, you get the following message:     This issue is pretty common and I have already blogged about it here: https://blog.ctglobalservices.com/msk/scom-2012-web-console-prompts-for-username-and-password/. As written in the blog post, this is due to Kerberos double hop. But what to do when that solution doesn’t do the trick?   I made sure that everything was as supposed:   Only Windows Authentication was enabled:   In Providers, NTLM had been moved up, which normally is the fix:   I then [...]

By |2013-11-27T11:17:36+01:00november 27th, 2013|Operations Manager (SCOM)|15 Comments
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