Author: Ronni Pedersen

Today I received an email from Microsoft and I am delighted to share that I have been awarded “Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2013 for the sixth consecutive year in Configuration Manager/Enterprise Client Management. I would like to thank everyone of you who have supported me in any form especially my family, friends, colleagues, all members of the Danish System Center User Group and other community partners. But also my MVP Lead, fellow MVPs and the Configuration Manager team at Microsoft in Redmond. A team of people I really admire and respect for their dedication and knowledge. The following is…

Microsoft has release a preview of the next version of the “Cloud OS” vision. This release was announced at TechEd Europe during the Keynote in Madrid earlier today. This release includes both the Server OS, the System Center suite, SQL and Windows Azure. Evaluation versions of this new “R2” wave, is now available on MSDN and TechNet: Windows Server Evaluations Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview for IT Professionals Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview on Windows Azure Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview for Developers Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Preview Windows ADK 8.1 Preview Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8.1…

Introduction A couple of months ago, I wrote the “Installing SCCM 2012 SP1 CU1 – Quick Start Guide”, and this post has been one of most visited blog post I’ve ever created, so my guess is that it would good idea to create one for Cumulative Update 2 (CU2). Installing this update is very similar to CU1, but a few things has changed. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the upgrade process step-by-step, in a standalone primary scenario. As always you should start by checking the health of the system, very the backup etc. Just like any other…

I’m a huge fan of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), so with the announcement of SCCM 2012 R2 adopting some of the core MDT features, I was wondering what the roadmap would be with the “LiteTouch” product. At TechEd, Aaron Czechowski and Michael gave some of these answers, and so far it’s looking good . Here is what they shared at TechEd 2013 in New Orleans during the “What’s New with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Update 1” Session: The preview release of MDT 2013 will be available in June 2013. Added support for the following scenarios: Windows 8.1 Windows Server 2012…

Microsoft TechEd North America 2013 in New Orleans has kicked off, and the sessions has started to show up on Channel 9, where most sessions and PowerPoint slides will be available 24 hours after the presentation. I’ve just watched the WCA-B328 Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 – Configuration Manager Overview session by Jason Adams and Dilip Radhakrishnan. And even if it the session title says SCCM 2012 SP1, lots of the new R2 stuff was covered. Truly a great overview session. View online session: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WCA-B328 Download PowerPoint: http://video.ch9.ms/sessions/teched/na/2013/WCA-B328.pptx Here are my notes from the session:(The R2 screenshots are from the…

Why this post? I often get questions on requirement rules and global expressions, so I thought I’d make a blog post to explain some of the things you might need to consider, before you choose what strategy and method you want use, and also what kind of reporting you need. Introduction When deploying applications in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (SCCM 2012), requirement rules are often used to determine what deployment type are to be used in the current scenario. But even if the application only have a single deployment type, I still recommend to use requirement rules to reduce the risk…

One of the new feature that has been added in ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 (and updated to support 32-bit in CU1), is support for deploying Windows to computers that are configured to use UEFI. I’m currently working on a Windows 8 deployment project, where one of the requirements was to support Windows 8 deployment to UEFI enabled devices. At this customer, we also integrated MDT 2012 with ConfigMgr 2012. The configuration was easy, and PXE boot worked like a charm. But after the OS Image was downloaded the Task Sequence failed, and after a few minutes we found the problem. The…

Last week I attended the Microsoft Management Summit 2013 in Las Vegas, and as always this was a great event. But to me this year was extra special. I’ve always wanted to speak at MMS, but I never signed up. I guess I was nervous about doing a full 75 minutes presentation in English in front of +500 attendees. But last year when Wally Mead was visiting our System Center User Group, he asked me if I’d like to do a joined session (A lab) with him at MMS, and somehow he managed to to make it sound so simple…

Right now, I’m sitting in the SAS Business Lounge at Copenhagen Airport, waiting to leave for the Microsoft Management Summit 2013 (MMS) in Las Vegas. This is one of the biggest Management events in world for IT Pro’s. At MMS some of the most skilled IT Professionals from around the world meet to increase their technical expertise through deep hands-on technical training, sharing of best practices and interaction with innovators and pioneers in desktop and device management, datacenter, and cloud technologies. As a Configuration Manager MVP, I’m always looking forward to this event. This year my main focus will still…

Installing SCCM 2012 SP1 CU1 is a simple process, but before you start, you should always check the health of the system, very the backup etc. Just like any other service pack or update. Update the Site Server In this example, I’ll just show you how to update an environment with a single standalone primary site server (that should cover +95% of all ConfgMgr Customers on the planet ). First, we need to download the setup file here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817245 Run ConfigMgr2012-SP1-CU1-KB2817245-X64-ENU.exe from the site server, and follow the wizard. All default settings should be ok, for most customers. The Welcome…