Configuration Manager 2012 powershell environment variables

  By David O'Brien | May 21, 2013 - 3:13 pm | , , , , ,
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SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH and SMS_LOG_PATH This is a quick one, because I just stumbled upon these two Powershell environment variables on a Site System Server (with installed Admin console) The following variable will resolve to the local path where the ConfigMgr 2012 Admin Console is installed to: This variable will resolve to the local path where the ConfigMgr 2012 logfiles are stored to: Variables for automation in ConfigMgr 2012 These variables are great for automation purposes, as we don’t have to go into registry anymore to look for the Admin console path and then import the Powershell module or register com-objects, we just use this variable. I will definitely rewrite my scripts … Continue reading →

Documentation for your ConfigMgr environment with Powershell – maintenance windows

  By David O'Brien | April 22, 2013 - 11:40 pm | , , , , ,
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After writing my previous script which creates new maintenance windows via Powershell on your ConfigMgr / SCCM 2012 device collections (look here) I had quite a few dummy maintenance windows all over my test environment. What does the lazy consultant do instead of looking for every single one of those dummies? He lets someone else do it… in this case, I wrote a script which creates a little logfile including all the collections that have a maintenance window configured. This script can also be helpful if you’re an consultant being asked to review an existing environment. Script to report all maintenance windows in your ConfigMgr environment This script does exactly … Continue reading →

How to create ConfigMgr collection maintenance windows – Powershell

  By David O'Brien | April 20, 2013 - 12:08 am | , , , , ,
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Here’s another one from my todo list (it’s getting shorter by the day…). What are Maintenance Windows in Microsoft ConfigMgr 2012 ? A customer once asked me what those maintenance windows on collections are for and if he had to create them on every collection he has. If you don’t know the answer to either of those two questions, read these articles: http://allthingsconfigmgr.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/configmgr-101-maintenance-windows/ http://henkhoogendoorn.blogspot.de/2011/04/maintenance-windows-in-configmgr-2012.html http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh508762.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/03/28/business-hours-vs-maintenance-windows-with-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t try to automate the creation of maintenance windows. This article shows you an example of how to create a new maintenance window for a collection which is open 24hrs every day. SMS_ScheduleMethods We’re going to use one … Continue reading →

How to install Software Update Point for ConfigMgr 2012 – Powershell

  By David O'Brien | April 17, 2013 - 11:49 pm | , , , , , ,
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This has been on my agenda quite a while now. How to install a SUP for ConfigMgr 2012 with Powershell. This wasn’t too easy since I wanted to accomplish this also with the help of some of the new built-in cmdlets and so again I had to do some switching between x64 and x86 powershell sessions. Prerequisites for Software Update Point The script will first check if the WSUS component is installed on the local client and if not installs and configures it. That’s all for prereqs, there are no more for a Windows Server 2012. I do however configure the WSUS to use a SQL database and the SUP … Continue reading →

Data deduplication on Win8

  By David O'Brien | April 13, 2013 - 9:03 pm | , ,
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How to enable Data Deduplication on Win8 A fellow Configuration Manager community member, Nickolaj Andersen, posted a blog article about Data Deduplication on Win8 and how to save quite some disk space. BE AWARE: This is totally unsupported on Win8!!! Do backups first! Find his article here: http://www.scconfigmgr.com/2013/04/13/enable-deduplication-for-your-lab-environment-in-windows-8/ I tried it on my disk (both SSD and HDD) and saved a huge amount of disk space for my private lab on my notebook. I’m running Win8 with Hyper-V and run my System Center environment in there and need a lot of disk space. Due to the still high prices of SSDs I only got a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD and … Continue reading →

Set-CMDeploymentType via Powershell for ConfigMgr 2012

  By David O'Brien | April 2, 2013 - 9:25 pm | , , , , , , ,
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A reader of my blog asked me something about one of the new Powershell cmdlets for ConfigMgr / SCCM 2012 and wanted me to check if I see the same behaviour (error) as he did. Doing the following executed with no visible error, but the property wasn’t set: Set-CMDeploymentType -ApplicationName appname -DeploymentTypeName appname -MsiOrScriptInstaller -AllowClientsToUseFallbackSourceLocationForContent $True   So what to do? Application model SDK for ConfigMgr 2012 After some digging around and testing and trying a colleague and I found the app model SDK for ConfigMgr 2012 and a nice blog article on MSDN for this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/one_line_of_code_at_a_time/archive/2012/01/17/microsoft-system-center-configuration-manager-2012-package-conversion-manager-plugin.aspx This was still not exactly what I was looking for, but it helped … Continue reading →

Powershell–How to eject all the ISOs of your Hyper-V machines?

  By David O'Brien | March 27, 2013 - 12:02 am | , ,
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Quick post before going to bed Ejecting ISOs of Hyper-V machines with Powershell I’m using my Windows’ 8 client Hyper-V since switching over to Win8 and I love it. I had so much problems with VMware Workstation’s network configuration and now it’s so much simpler (forgetting the Internet Connection Sharing problems I got…). Well, I usually have all my ISOs I need on a daily basis on my external USB hard drive and mount those ISOs as DVD drives into my machines. Not too special, I know But I tend to forget where I mounted what and when I try to disconnect my USB drive it nearly always moans about … Continue reading →

Orchestrator & ConfigMgr 2012 Install new Distribution Point

  By David O'Brien | March 25, 2013 - 11:31 am | , , , , , , ,
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The new ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 CU1 has given us new Powershell cmdlets ( see here and here), one of these is the Add-CMDistributionPoint cmdlet. Well, I don’t like it, but that’s just me. I still use my own script to install a Distribution Point in SCCM 2012. (look here: How to install a Distribution Point via Powershell) ConfigMgr / SCCM and Orchestrator combined Because that is not enough, I went and implemented this script into an Orchestrator runbook, which you can download here: http://davidobrien.codeplex.com/releases/view/103984 or view the code here http://davidobrien.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/f97015e3f140#Install_DistributionPoint_CM12.ois_export As usual with my runbooks, you’ll need to define your variables in the runbook and globally:

Found! – Where are my new ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 CU1 cmdlets?

  By David O'Brien | March 23, 2013 - 1:05 pm | , , , , ,
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If you take a look at my recent post about the new CU1 for SCCM 2012 SP1, you’ll notice that I say that the promised new cmdlets are missing from the powershell module. Well, I found them. The CU1 setup will update your site and database, if you like, but it won’t update your Admin console. That’s up to you! Update the Admin console The CU1 setup will create some new update packages for you. One of those is the update for the admin console. Alternative 1: Deploy this package onto all servers with an admin console. Alternative 2: In \\{siteserver}\SMS_{SiteCode}\hotfix\ you’ll find some folders for every KB you installed. … Continue reading →

Cumulative Update 1 for Configuration Manager 2012

  By David O'Brien | March 23, 2013 - 10:19 am | , , , ,
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This night the CU1 for SCCM 2012 got released and I just want to share with you the process of update. The download is available here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817245/en-us Before updating your site, please do a backup of your site and verify that it was successful! Step-by-step installation of CU1 for ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 For those of you who like reading logfiles, the whole update is logged under C:\windows\temp\configmgr2012-sp1-cu1-kb2817245-x64-enu.log Step 1: Step 2: Accept the EULA Step 3: Prerequisite check Step 4: Update the Site database Here you’re asked whether you want setup to update the site database automatically or if you want to update it manually later on. If you are … Continue reading →