A great new addition to SCCM is the Config Mgr dashboard. The dashboard addition integrates with your SharePoint infrastructure so installation and configuration can be done in minutes. This highly flexible tool will allow you to customize near real-time information and display it in an interactive format. Access is all role based so it allows administrators to really tailor the information to their audience. There is a huge difference in the information required by a senior manager compared to someone on the Service Desk. Out of the box the dashboard is ready to display the top five day-to-day metrics:
• Software deployment metrics
• OS deployment metrics
• Software Update Management
• Asset Inventory Information
• Client & Server activity Information
You can download the dashboard add-on from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=187322. Pre-requisites are a Configuration Manager 2007 site, SQL Server 2005 or above, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2, .NET 3.5 and Internet Explorer 7.0. For more information check out http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff369719.aspx
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
MMS 2010 - Viva Las Vegas
This post is long overdue – I’ve been back from MMS for a couple of weeks and feel that I’m still playing catch up at work. My first MMS was a great experience and I can’t for next year’s event. (Mandalay Bay March 21 – 25 2011) I attended every session that I could possibly fit into my schedule and brought back some fantastic information. Another bonus was a chance to meet other IT professionals that are either facing the same challenges that I am or have already worked through them.
Probably one of the most popular topics was Config Mgr v.Next. This is the next version of Config Mgr that is tentatively going to drop in 2011. Watch for a complete change in software distribution as we know it. It will be a user centric shift for Config Mgr.
One of my favourite types of session were the Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. These small loosely organized sessions that are really more about being interactive than anything. I was able to end are really good session with Dell IT and their use of SCUP and a Q&A session with Microsoft’s Config Mgr development team.
Overall I was able bring back some incredible knowledge from MMS and I will be posting more details here in the upcoming days. Also, kudos to the Microsoft event staff as they did a fantastic job.
Probably one of the most popular topics was Config Mgr v.Next. This is the next version of Config Mgr that is tentatively going to drop in 2011. Watch for a complete change in software distribution as we know it. It will be a user centric shift for Config Mgr.
One of my favourite types of session were the Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. These small loosely organized sessions that are really more about being interactive than anything. I was able to end are really good session with Dell IT and their use of SCUP and a Q&A session with Microsoft’s Config Mgr development team.
Overall I was able bring back some incredible knowledge from MMS and I will be posting more details here in the upcoming days. Also, kudos to the Microsoft event staff as they did a fantastic job.
Friday, April 9, 2010
SCCM 2007 Site Server Installation: Failed to install component SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER on server…
Recently I set out to rebuild our SCCM 2007 lab environment as the entire lab infrastructure had just been replaced and Server 2008 R2 was now available. After our server team handed off the new site server I installed all of the required components without issue. However during my SCCM installation phase the MP Control Manager came with a status unknown warning but the SCCM installation log didn’t lead me to believe that anything went wrong. After the installation I opened the SCCM console to check the status of all my site components and not surprisingly my SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER status was full of errors.
SMS Site Component Manager failed to install component SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER on server “server name”
The WebDAV server extension is either not installed or not configured properly.
Solution: Make sure WebDAV is installed and enabled. Make sure there is an authoring rule that allow "All users" read access to "All content". Make sure the WebDAV settings "Allow anonymous property queries" and "Allow property queries with infinite depth" are set to "true" and "Allow Custom Properties" is set to false.
This error seemed odd as WebDAV was installed without any problems and both the authoring rules and configuration settings had been doubled checked.
• WebDAV enabled – check
• Authoring rule configured the required way error message solution suggested – check
• WebDAV settings configured the required way error message solution suggested – check
• Double checked with the following TechNet article http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc431377.aspx - check
• IIS logs clean – check
• Server rebooted - check
I decided to reinstall WebDAV just in case something had gone sideways during the original install. After removing WebDAV, rebooting the server (required), reinstalling WebDAV and reconfiguring it SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER reinstalled before I could even get the SCCM console open again.
SMS Site Component Manager successfully installed this component on this site system.
I couldn’t find a solid reason for why the component installation failed originally but sometimes the solution to your problem is not necessarily the most complex.
SMS Site Component Manager failed to install component SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER on server “server name”
The WebDAV server extension is either not installed or not configured properly.
Solution: Make sure WebDAV is installed and enabled. Make sure there is an authoring rule that allow "All users" read access to "All content". Make sure the WebDAV settings "Allow anonymous property queries" and "Allow property queries with infinite depth" are set to "true" and "Allow Custom Properties" is set to false.
This error seemed odd as WebDAV was installed without any problems and both the authoring rules and configuration settings had been doubled checked.
• WebDAV enabled – check
• Authoring rule configured the required way error message solution suggested – check
• WebDAV settings configured the required way error message solution suggested – check
• Double checked with the following TechNet article http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc431377.aspx - check
• IIS logs clean – check
• Server rebooted - check
I decided to reinstall WebDAV just in case something had gone sideways during the original install. After removing WebDAV, rebooting the server (required), reinstalling WebDAV and reconfiguring it SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER reinstalled before I could even get the SCCM console open again.
SMS Site Component Manager successfully installed this component on this site system.
I couldn’t find a solid reason for why the component installation failed originally but sometimes the solution to your problem is not necessarily the most complex.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Windows Server 2008 R2 – Disable Enhanced Security Configuration
If you’ve ever tried to use Internet Explorer with Enhanced Security Configuration enabled you know what a pain it is. You spend more time clicking on security pop-ups than you do browsing the internet. In a production environment it’s not a big deal because I spend zero time browsing the internet from the console of a server – besides it’s a security best practice not too. However this week I spent some time in our lab trying to figure out a couple of things and needed internet access from my server. In Windows 2003 you simply went into Add / Remove programs and removed Internet Explorer Enhanced Configuration as a component. This is no longer the case in Server 2008 R2. To disable IE ESC on a Windows 2008 R2 machine follow these steps:
• Launch Server Manager
• On the main page click on Configure IE ESC (Bottom right-hand corner)
• Turn this functionality off for the required user group
• Launch Server Manager
• On the main page click on Configure IE ESC (Bottom right-hand corner)
• Turn this functionality off for the required user group
Monday, March 29, 2010
SMS Software Distribution Error - Hash does not match expected
Recently I was trying to push out an application to our remote distribution points for an upcoming upgrade and I thought everything had replicated properly. Distribution manager came back clean saying that the package was copied successfully to all sites. However when I went to deploy the application to our pilot users at these sites a number of them failed with the following error:
Program failed (download failed – content mismatch).
All of the failed workstations were located in one of three remote sites. I came across an article (http://www.myitforum.com/articles/8/view.asp?id=8739) outlining this problem and the symptoms of a hash mismatch. Sure enough when I checked my CAS.log file on the problem workstations they were full of the following hash mismatch errors:
Hash does not match expected 2951DEF9FD9AE6331DDF547AA70454EA75D395D1, actual 8838D728ED3E90D462D4CE3189841BCEBE8C369C
To resolve this issue I removed the problem package from all three of the distribution points, confirmed the removal, and then copied the application back to the distribution points. I was then able to re-run the advertisement on the problem workstations and they upgraded as expected.
On another note if you haven’t visited myITforum.com lately they have recently upgraded their server hardware and the performance increase is quite noticeable. Good job guys – I would be lost without your site.
Program failed (download failed – content mismatch).
All of the failed workstations were located in one of three remote sites. I came across an article (http://www.myitforum.com/articles/8/view.asp?id=8739) outlining this problem and the symptoms of a hash mismatch. Sure enough when I checked my CAS.log file on the problem workstations they were full of the following hash mismatch errors:
Hash does not match expected 2951DEF9FD9AE6331DDF547AA70454EA75D395D1, actual 8838D728ED3E90D462D4CE3189841BCEBE8C369C
To resolve this issue I removed the problem package from all three of the distribution points, confirmed the removal, and then copied the application back to the distribution points. I was then able to re-run the advertisement on the problem workstations and they upgraded as expected.
On another note if you haven’t visited myITforum.com lately they have recently upgraded their server hardware and the performance increase is quite noticeable. Good job guys – I would be lost without your site.
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