Once upon a time, in a ConfigMgr environment far, far away. There was a variable named SMSDP… 🙂 There are times when its useful to figure out what DP you are currently using, and back in ConfigMgr 2007, when integrated with MDT, there was a variable for that: The SMSDP variable . Here is a […]
I'm very exited to announce that our free eBook, A Geeks Guide to Windows 10 Deployment, has been updated to Windows 10 2004 and ConfigMgr 2002. To get your free copy, simply sign up for our newsletter here on the blog, and if you downloaded a previous version, simply go to the same link, and […]
In Cloud OS Deployment, Part 1, you learned how to run MDT task sequences via Microsoft Intune for Computer Refresh and Inplace Upgrade / Windows 10 Servicing scenarios. And in Cloud OS Deployment, Part 2, you learned how to do bare metal deployments from the cloud via MDT, with or without any local infrastructure. In this […]
Due to code changes in Windows ADK 10 v2004 the MDT utility (Microsoft.BDD.Utility.dll) that detects BIOS or UEFI firmware types no longer works correctly, and detects BIOS-based machines as UEFI-based machines. Update June 3, 2020: Microsoft released a hotfix for this issue. Basically a new version of Microsoft.BDD.Utility.dll: With this hotfix you don't need the […]
In Cloud OS Deployment, Part 1, you learned how to run MDT task sequences via Microsoft Intune for Computer Refresh and Inplace Upgrade / Windows 10 Servicing scenarios. In this part you learn how to do bare metal deployments over Internet (http/https), with, or without any other corporate infrastructure. TL;DR By setting up a VM […]
A few days ago I asked my fellow tweeps for some real-world numbers of the cost of using the pretty amazing CMG feature for ConfigMgr. The CMG Platform as a Service (PaaS) is using a A2 V2 instance which will determine the minimum cost, but, obviously, the price will vary depending on usage, downloads, and […]
Here is a work in progress sample for a better installer script for Microsoft Edge. Any comments/feedback/ideas are more than welcome 🙂 Since the initial release I've removed the master_preferences section since its not support by Microsoft Edge (only for Google Chrome). ConfigMgr Native Script for Edge The native ConfigMgr script adds an update channel […]
With Windows 7 out of support, protecting your WAN links, and reducing the network impact Windows 10 will have on your environment has never been more important. In this post I wanted to compare Peer Cache and BranchCache in ConfigMgr for a specific scenario to see how they compared to each other. The scenario: I […]
An organization contacted me last week regarding a few failing Windows 10 upgrades, it was a few Windows 7 to Windows 10 v1909 upgrades failing with the following error: The normal Windows 10 Inplace upgrade logs won't help you much troubleshooting an error like this, but what you can do is mimic what the setup […]
Starting in ConfigMgr 1806, only machines that are online will be returned as a Peer Cache Source. During the process of finding the content for a peer asking for it, ConfigMgr runs the MP_GetSuperPeerContentLocations stored procedure to find the content. However, that stored procedure is a bit complicated to run just for figuring out where […]
In a recent project / study, I had the need to measure the individual, as well as combined, outbound network traffic from a fixed set of of servers. In this example, a domain controller (DC01), a ConfigMgr Management Point (CM01), and a ConfigMgr Distribution Point (DP01). What can I say, PowerShell to the rescue. The […]
Lately I have been doing a lot of performance testing for ConfigMgr OSD. Basically I've deploying separate batches of machines, and I needed a quick way monitor certain milestones of their deployment, and filter out everything else. The various task sequence reports and monitors I found out there gave me a bit to much info, […]
ConfigMgr natively supports three different platforms for peer-to-peer (P2P) of content. It's Peer Cache, BranchCache, and Delivery Optimization (DO). To cover P2P of all types of content ConfigMgr supports you need to pick at least two of these. You always have to pick DO, because it's the only platform that can P2P native Windows 10 […]
In ConfigMgr, when doing OS Deployment from HTTPS enabled DPs, or via Peer Cache (uses HTTPS too), or via BranchCache (encrypted data + encrypted transfers), you will find that using traditional driver packages, with thousands of small files, is not going as fast as you would like. In fact, a single deployment can take a […]
Since ConfigMgr 1810, there is a new, and much improved way to wake up machines on your network. However, your hardware must be configured to allow it, and so does Windows 10. Good news, you can use ConfigMgr for that too. I typically use a Task Sequence for most hardware (BIOS) configurations, and a Configuration […]
I was tasked with very quickly (few hours notice) having to produce a CSV file listing all IP Range type boundaries together with the Default Gateway(s) used in each IP Range. This is what I came up with. SQL Data used There are many ways to get inventoried info about IP Address and Default Gateway […]
When a driver is causing a crash in full Windows, its fairly easy to debug. You simply allow Windows to create the memory.dmp file, load it into you favorite debugger, and off you go. However, when you get an BSOD in WinPE, for example during OS deployment its quite different. For a start there is […]
As a general rule of thumb, keeping your boundary groups configuration stupid simple is a good idea. That being said, I was today years old when I learned how multiple boundary groups, with different peer download settings, affect Delivery Optimization settings as well as Peer Cache downloads. TL;DR Configure your clients to be a member […]
Well, the topic is at least true when automating deployment tests in UEFI-based virtual machines. When spinning up multiple VMs, the last thing you want to do is having the connect to each one of them and "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD….." Well, that's not to hard to fix, simply replace […]
Per request from a fellow tweep, here is crash course in ConfigMgr Distribution Points, Boundaries, and Boundary Groups. Distribution Points In ConfigMgr environments, the Distribution Points, or DPs, are simply there to store packages that client connects to for downloading software like applications, software updates, and OS deployment images etc.. To make sure clients are […]