Slides from Back to Basics – Windows 10 / 11 Setup Internals

By Johan Arwidmark / July 25, 2021

Here are the slides from the Back to Basics – Windows 10 / 11 Setup Internals session that Michael Niehaus and me presented on July 22 for the FWSMUG user group. If you missed the event, you can see the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5PJLZ_WLOY Download slides: FWSMUG_07_2021_Back_to_Basics_Windows_10_and_Windows_11_Setup_Internals_Final.pptx Blast from the past Funny enough, I got a […]

The Deployment Research Lab

By Johan Arwidmark / June 10, 2021

One of the students attending the ViaMonstra Online Academy reached out and asked for a spec of the lab I used for most of my demos. Well, look no further. here it is: The Machines My main research lab for the Arwidmark's consists of two HP Z840, and six Dell OptiPlex 7040 machines. Don't mind […]

Best Customer Quote of 2021

By Johan Arwidmark / June 6, 2021

Every now and then a customer will just blurt out a statement that either blows my mind, or makes me laugh out loud. In this case, it was a ConfigMgr customer up in Canada that accomplished both 🙂 "I understand very fast as long as you explain it for a very long time" / Johan

Invoke Run Script via PowerShell and Collect the Result

By Johan Arwidmark / May 21, 2021

I'm a big fan of the Run Script feature in ConfigMgr, since it allows me to run a PowerShell script on any ConfigMgr client without having to worry about remote PowerShell being enabled, or having any special permissions on the target machine itself. Here is an example on how to invoke a run script via […]

Speeding up the MDT integration in ConfigMgr – Creating MDT Lite Packages

By Johan Arwidmark / May 15, 2021

While more and more organizations are leaving the MDT integration in ConfigMgr behind – In favor of PowerShell driven community solutions, or by developing their own custom PowerShell scripts – There are still ConfigMgr environments using the integration. While the default MDT package that is created by the MDT console extensions for ConfigMgr is working […]

Supporting Multiple Primary Sites, and Multiple Azure/Intune Tenants

By Johan Arwidmark / April 26, 2021

A common set of questions in the various ConfigMgr forums is how ConfigMgr can work in environments where you either have multiple Azure and Intune tenants, or more commonly, have multiple ConfigMgr primary sites. Note: When I write multiple ConfigMgr sites, I mean multiple ConfigMgr standalone sites, not sites being part of a ConfigMgr CAS […]

New-CMBootableMedia cmdlet fails in ConfigMgr 2103

By Johan Arwidmark / April 23, 2021

If you recently upgraded to ConfigMgr 2103 you may notice that your existing PowerShell script to create boot media fails after the upgrade. The reason is a code change that requires the New-CMBootableMedia cmdlet to run x86 PowerShell to work. According to a tweet from Mark Silvey (@configmgrdev), this will be addressed in upcoming releases. […]

Get Computer Name from ConfigMgr AdminService in WinPE

By Johan Arwidmark / April 10, 2021

Got a question on Twitter yesterday on how to send a computer name to the MDT Monitoring Service really early in the OSD process. In fact even before the TS Environment is initialized and any ConfigMgr variables are being read. The scenario was basically that they wanted to see the real computer name in the […]

Links to Vendor Model and Driver Catalogs

By Johan Arwidmark / April 10, 2021

While I highly recommend using the Modern Driver Management community solution for your driver management, here is a list of vendor driver catalogs you can download to look up model and driver details: HP Client Driver Pack Cataloghttps://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HPClientDriverPackCatalog.cab HP Client Catalog for ConfigMgrhttps://hpia.hpcloud.hp.com/downloads/sccmcatalog/HpCatalogForSms.latest.cab Dell product cabinet filehttps://downloads.dell.com/catalog/DriverPackCatalog.cab Lenovo XML cataloghttps://download.lenovo.com/cdrt/td/catalogv2.xml Microsoft Models (via Maurice Daly)https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maurice-daly/DriverAutomationTool/master/Data/MSProducts.xml […]

Comparing ESD with standard WIM packages in ConfigMgr IPU Task Sequences

By Johan Arwidmark / February 8, 2021

With the release of ConfigMgr Technical Preview 2101, Microsoft added in support for task sequences to use the smaller ESD packages that is part of the Windows 10 Servicing feature in ConfigMgr. Obviously I was interested in seeing what the real download amount would be when using these types of packages vs. standard WIM packages […]

Configuring User Rights Policies in Intune via Custom Profile

By Johan Arwidmark / January 22, 2021

To make a long story short: When configuring user rights policies in Intune with a device configuration (custom profile), you'll find that the sample provided in the docs won't fully work. It does the correct configuration on the clients, but it will show you a remediation error in the Intune portal, which is not very […]

A Blast From The Past – Jurassic Deployment

By Johan Arwidmark / December 21, 2020

So…. Is it good? No. Is it dynamic? No. Does it support settings? No. Does it support applications? No. Does it have any error handling? Also, no. Does it support drivers? Barely. But it is fast… 🙂 Before Altiris, BDD, MDT, SMS, PowerShell, and ConfigMgr and other deployment solutions there were batch files…. And many […]

Adding Useful Tools to Your WinPE Boot Image

By Johan Arwidmark / December 13, 2020

For anyone working with OSD for more than about 4 minutes, you know that its in the WinPE phase most of the magic happens. For testing and troubleshooting purposes its quite helpful to add some tools to your boot image, so you always have them available without having to download from a web server or […]

Fixing DaRT integration for MDT Lite Touch with Windows ADK 2004

By Johan Arwidmark / September 7, 2020

If you ever tried to use the DaRT integration in MDT Lite Touch with Windows ADK 2004, you probably noticed that you will not see the command prompt in the remote viewer when pressing F8. This is due to a code change in Windows ADK 2004. Here is a quick fix for that. Note: This […]

Back to Basics – Restoring the SMSDP Variable

By Johan Arwidmark / September 1, 2020

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 […]

A Geeks Guide to Windows 10 Deployment updated to Windows 10 2004 and ConfigMgr 2002

By Johan Arwidmark / June 22, 2020

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 […]

Cloud OS Deployment, Part 3 – Bare Metal Deployment via ConfigMgr with Content from the Cloud

By Johan Arwidmark / June 5, 2020

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 […]

Making MDT work with Windows ADK 2004 for BIOS Machines

By Johan Arwidmark / May 19, 2020

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 […]

Cloud OS Deployment, Part 2 – Bare Metal Deployment via MDT from the Cloud

By Johan Arwidmark / May 1, 2020

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 […]

Real-world costs for using a Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) with ConfigMgr

By Johan Arwidmark / April 17, 2020

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 […]