Yesterday I started a new Windows 10 1803 project with a customer. They want to start deploying Windows 10 1803 to new machines and also start upgrade existing Windows 10 clients to 1803. To upgrade existing clients, I’ve created a Task Sequence template that I’ve been using at many different customers in previous projects (including 1803). But yesterday I got the following error displayed in a Command Prompt during the deployment: winpeshl.ini file is present, but no commands were successfully launched. This could be caused by incorrect formatting or an invalid executable name. Please consult the documentation for more information.…
Browsing: Windows Deployment
Today I got a call from a customer that was playing around with OSD in System Center Configuration Manager and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). He wanted to know where he could find a list of all the Time Zones Names, so he could change the default “Pacific Standard Time” to something else. But where can you find a list of all the “TimeZoneName”?Instead of using some old reference list on TechNet or MSDN, you can simply use the good old Time Zone Utility (Tzutil), that can be used to view and manage available time zones.You can run Tzutil from…
Overview Technical Preview 1701 for System Center Configuration Manager has just been released, and a new hardware inventory class (SMS_Firmware) and property (UEFI) are now available to help customers determine whether a computer is configured to UEFI mode. When a computer is running in UEFI mode, the UEFI property is set to TRUE (1). Computers that are not started in UEFI mode will have a value of 0. This is enabled in hardware inventory by default. Windows 10 Security features Most enterprise customers want to move to Windows 10 to benefit from some of the great security improvements like Device…
Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions earlier today @ MS TechTalks in Helsinki. Here are the links that we used during the presentation. Recordings should be available on Microsoft Channel 9 (I don’t know when). Managing Updates in the Enterprise PowerShell Script: Add-CMUsersPrimaryDevicesToCollection.ps1:k https://github.com/NickolajA/PowerShell/blob/master/ConfigMgr/Users/Add-CMUsersPrimaryDevicesToCollection.ps1 Changes to Software Updates on Down Level Operating Systems for ConfigMgr Admins: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/configmgrdogs/2016/10/11/changes-to-software-updates-on-down-level-operating-systems-for-configmgr-admins/ Configuration Manager and Simplified Windows Servicing on Down Level Operating Systems: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2016/10/07/configuration-manager-and-simplified-windows-servicing-on-down-level-operating-systems/ Windows 10 and UEFI Inventory Secure Boot State and UEFI with ConfigMgr: https://miketerrill.net/2015/10/11/inventory-secure-boot-state-and-uefi-with-configmgr/ Power BI SCCM Templates: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/sccm-solution-template/ Switch from Bios to UEFI seamless using Configuration Manager TS in 6…
This week Microsoft are kicking off the Cloud Roadshow event in Copenhagen, where you have the opportunity to meet me and many of my co-workers. So if you plan to attend the event, don’t miss the chance to visit our booth and talk to our experts about how we have helped our customers through the transition to the cloud. You also have the chance to attend my session about Windows 10 deployment features where Kim Kaae from Microsoft and myself, will tell you all about the new tools that can help customers migrate to Windows 10. Kim will do all…
With the release of Windows 10, more and more customers are starting to move from the traditional KMS based activation model to Active Directory-based activation (ADBA). In a single domain environment, the setup process is really simple, and a complete step-by-step guide can be found here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn613828.aspx. But if you’re using a multi domain setup, you might see this errors when you try to Activate online. In this specific scenario, we had the KMS server installed the child domain, and new servers in the forest root domain was activated using a MAK key. This is not supported if you want…
If you upgrade to MDT 2013 Update 1 and then create a new MDT Boot Image in SCCM, you will learn that the WinPE-MDAC component are not added to the boot image as expected. By default the WinPE-MDAC component are selected in the wizard, but if you check the Optional Components tab of the boot image, you’ll see that the WinPE-MDAC is missing. The wizard showing that WinPE-MDAC will be added: Properties after the Boot Images was created (WinPE-MDAC is missing): The fix is pretty simple. Just add the WinPE-MDAC component, and update the boot image. Now everything looks…
When creating SCCM driver packages I always (99%) use WMI queries to select the correct driver package to be installed. Often I perform these tasks remotely without visiting the customer. The main reason for this blog post is to provide a list of useful commands that the customer can execute on the computer to get the WMI query I need. Depending on the hardware vendor you might want to use different commands, but these commands should provide most of the information you need. Here is the computer information that where returned by running the commands on my computer: wmic csproduct…
Microsoft has released Windows 10, and all over this little blue planet we call earth, Administrators are starting to deploy Windows 10. Microsoft has now released a complete set of Administrative Template (.admx) files for Windows 10: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48257 If you want to learn more about Windows 10 deployment check out these links: Getting Started with Windows 10 for IT Professionals Windows 10 on Channel 9 /Enjoy. +Ronni Pedersen
The last 2 months or so we’ve worked hard with many of our customers to fix a small problem with the Windows Update Agent on Windows 7. More Information on this problem: http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2015/04/15/support-tip-configmgr-2012-update-scan-fails-and-causes-incorrect-compliance-status.aspx Last night Microsoft released an update for this specific problem and this blog post will explain how to deploy this fix in your environment. Download the update Start by downloading the Windows Update Agent version 7.6.7601.18847 for Windows 7 here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3050265 Create Collections In this example I’m using two collections as limiting collections that I’ve created earlier. Query (x64): select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM on…