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 […]

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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, […]

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I have just published a tool (PowerShell script) on github to create a comprehensive documentation of a tenant and also export all settings in JSON format that can also be used for importing settings again in the same tenant or even another. This can be very useful in a scenario where there is a DEV-tenant […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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This solution is for devices that have already been bought or for lab/test scenarios to simplify the onboarding process. When planning on going into production the devices that are bought should already be enrolled into your tenant by your hardware vendor. A list of vendors that support Autopilot can be found here Link This solution […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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On a normal Management point it is pretty straight forward to test if the management point is working by browsing to these addresses: http://<mp_server_name>/sms_mp/.sms_aut?mplisthttp://<mp_server_name>/sms_mp/.sms_aut?mpcert But if you try to do that on a HTTPS-enabled management point as a normal user you will get an error with access denied. This is because the CM client uses […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Here is a quick guide on how to use #OSDBuilder from David Segura (@SeguraOSD) to create a Windows 10 v1909 reference image with two language packs (German and Swedish), as well as with .NET Framework enabled. This guide contains of the following steps: Installing OSD Builder Import OS Media, with Language Packs, and run the […]

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Here is a operations guide sysadmin or operations team can follow to maintain a ConfigMgr environment. The guide is divided in to daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly operation tasks. In general the tasks described in these documents should be implemented into whatever ticketing system that is being used, such as Service Now, Remedy or Zendesk. […]

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For ConfigMgr admins and operation teams the struggle for better ConfigMgr client health is very real. The harsh truth is that unless you are managing a small lab with like 50 clients, you are very likely to never reach 100 percent client health (sorry). There will always be machines that simply will not fully cooperate […]

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Since mid-2015, major ConfigMgr versions are released every for months, with usually a Hotfix Rollup (called HFRU) or two in between each major release. Anew ConfigMgr version is released into the early update ring first, and then after a few weeks, released broadly without you having to opt in for the update. Start upgrading your […]

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This kit builds a complete ConfigMgr Current Branch 2107 infrastructure running on Windows Server 2019 and SQL Server 2017. This kit is tested on both Hyper-V and VMware virtual platforms, but should work fine on any virtualization platform that can boot from an ISO file. This kit now also adds and configuring SQL Server Reporting Services, and has been updated for Windows 11 support.

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Here is a step-by-step quick guide on building the perfect Windows Server 2016 reference image. This guide is divided in two parts: The first part covers how to create a Windows Server 2016 reference image in just a few minutes using offline servicing. The quick-and-dirty method. The second part is about creating a Windows Server 2016 reference image using MDT 8443. The SHINY method.

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When deploying task sequences with the purpose of pre-caching of content – for example before a large application roll-out, or Windows 10 servicing (Inplace upgrade – you better pick the right settings, or you'll find that the clients may download the same content twice. The trick to pre-caching is to make sure the content ends […]

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