Category: Deployment

  • ConfigMgr Package and Program Return Codes and Reboot Behaviour

    This post describes the ways that Microsoft Configuration Manager handles reboots for a Package & Program deployment. The behaviour depends on the Program configuration, deployment method, and return code. For example, a Package will perform differently when deployed in a Task Sequence than when it is deployed directly to a collection.

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  • ConfigMgr Package Success, Reboot and Retry Return Codes

    This post describes the return codes that Microsoft Configuration Manager understands for Package and Program deployments and shows which codes are classed success, reboot, or retry.

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  • ConfigMgr Create Task Sequence Media Wizard and Network Ports

    Overview This post describes the firewall ports that need to be opened between a Microsoft Configuration Manager console and servers in order to use the Create Task Sequence Media wizard. I recently had to run the Create Task Sequence Media wizard from a ConfigMgr console installed in a secure environment. All the network ports as…

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  • Script to Detect if Running from ConfigMgr Task Sequence and Avoid False Positives

    Overview This post shows how a script can detect if it is running from inside a Microsoft Configuration Manager Task Sequence in a way that avoids false positives. The Problem At times it’s useful for a script to detect if it is running from a ConfigMgr Task Sequence so it can alter its behaviour accordingly.…

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  • WinPE Version List

    Overview This post contains a WinPE version list including the WinPE version, the Windows version, and the numeric Windows version string that it was built from. It covers all versions of WinPE from the initial Windows XP versions to the latest Windows 10 versions. Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE or WinPE) is a lightweight version…

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  • Automating Office 365 Click-to-Run First Use Without Group Policy

    Overview This post shows how to automate the numerous “first-run” dialogs that are shown when a user runs an Office 2013 or Office 365 application for the first time. With a standard local installation of Office 2013 this can be done in two ways. Firstly, by using Group Policy (the recommended way). Secondly, by using…

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  • Mass Redistribute Packages in ConfigMgr 2012

    Overview Recently I came across an issue with System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2012 where a large number of packages and applications had failed to be distributed to a new Distribution Point (DP). There were many thousands of packages in the environment and a few hundred were showing in the error state in the console.…

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  • Using Custom XML and Config Files with USMT and ConfigMgr

    Overview Using USMT In System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM / ConfigMgr)  when performing an Operating System Deployment (OSD) can be a bit of a chore. The built in Task Sequence actions available for capturing and restoring user state only allow you to perform a very basic migration. Most of the time USMT requires quite a…

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  • Create a USMT Package in ConfigMgr

    Overview In System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM / ConfigMgr)  when performing an Operating System Deployment (OSD) there is usually some form of user data and settings migration. This is often performed using the Microsoft User State Migration Toolkit (USMT). The first step in using USMT is to create the USMT tool ConfigMgr package. This post…

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  • Create a Windows 7 BitLocker Partition in ConfigMgr

    Overview In System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM / ConfigMgr)  something I’ve done a few times is to create a BitLocker partition for Windows 7 during an Operating System Deployment (OSD) Task Sequence. I’ve seen the method used here a few times before but I wanted to document it for myself so that I can use…

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  • ConfigMgr 2012 SQL Database Collation

    Overview I just tried to update my ‘default’ installation of System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM / ConfigMgr) 2012 RC1 to RC2. I got a failure at the pre-req check stage stating that my SQL 2008 R2 database was using the wrong collation type and that installation couldn’t continue. It turns out that the default collation…

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  • Disk of Drivers

    MDT and ConfigMgr Build Drivers for Windows 7

    Overview When doing Windows 7 builds in either MDT 2010 or ConfigMgr 2007 you have to download and install a selection of drivers that are to be installed in your images. Some drivers are used for the WinPE boot image so that the boot image can access the local harddisk (a boot critical driver) and…

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  • Setting a UK Keyboard in ConfigMgr 2007 OSD

    Overview In the UK, we actually get the US version of Windows 7 and Office 2010, so whenever I do any build engineering in either MDT or ConfigMgr one of the first things I need to customize are the regional settings. In particular the keyboard layout and location. There are many ways to achieve this…

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  • ConfigMgr 2007 OSD Folder Structure

    Overview When configuring ConfigMgr 2007 Operating System Deployment (OSD) there are an endless number of applications, operating system images, operating system install files, drivers, source files, package files, temp files. Everytime I set it up I end up with a different structure so this blog post presents an example ConfigMgr 2007 OSD folder structure that…

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  • Get Selected Microsoft TechNet Library Content Offline

    Overview No-one can ever know everything they need to know about Microsoft products and techies will freely admit that they spend half their time checking resources such as Microsoft TechNet while working on a problem or design. Sometimes I need to go on to a site where I won’t have internet access. As anyone who…

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  • AutoIt Featured

    App-V Recipe: AutoIt v3

    Overview This blog post will show you how to sequence AutoIt using App-V 4.6 SP1 (the latest version at the time of writing). Now, AutoIt is probably the easiest application to sequence in the world and doesn’t really need a blog post describing how to do it. However, I intend to write some more posts…

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  • AeroFlip

    Windows 7 Aero Theme Not Enabled After Deployment

    Overview An issue I saw a number of times at customers was that the Windows 7 Aero theme was not enabled after deployment. I saw this numerous times in early workshops and pilots for customers and completely forgot about it until I saw the question asked again a few weeks ago. So here is a…

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