In our trainings we get this question a lot, so I figured I should write it down… The question is: In a Co-managed environment, how can I manage drivers and firmware updates using the new control plane in Intune without switching the workload for updates to Intune? Basically, you want to manage quality updates with […]

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When creating ConfigMgr task sequences you learn that ConfigMgr assigns different types to them. This type is available as the _SMSTSType task sequence variable during deployment, and also available in the ConfigMgr database, as the TS_Type column in the vSMS_TaskSequencePackage view. The values are: Credits: Thanks to Boushev Gleb for the initial find But what […]

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Unless you have been totally off grid the last few weeks or so, you probably noticed a ton of new information on Endpoint Management from Microsoft, more specifically from the Microsoft Technical Takeoff event that has been running during November 27-30, 2023-. The Microsoft Technical Takeoff event was combination of about live AMA (Ask Microsoft […]

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In a previous post, you learned how to use PowerShell to create a pre-caching task sequence for ConfigMgr from a list of packages, more specifically a list of driver packages. Here is a PowerShell script that creates a pre-caching task sequence from another task sequence. Here is the script: https://github.com/DeploymentResearch/DRFiles/blob/master/Scripts/ConfigMgr/New-PreCacheTaskSequenceFromAnotherTS.ps1 In this example I had […]

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Here are some SQL queries to get additional package details from a ConfigMgr database.

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Few people knows that the ConfigMgr Client Cache has a default limit of 99999 MB, or 97.6 GB. That's when using native ConfigMgr Client Settings or the UIResource.UIResourceMgr COM object on the client that is. TL;DR: If you don't mind a healthy dose of WMI, you can increase the size beyond 99999 MB. Credits: Thanks […]

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When using the Windows Autopilot for Existing Devices scenario it's quite useful having those devices being automatically added to a group in Intune. This can be done by matching the ZtdCorrelationId from the Autopilot JSON file used in this scenario. Credits: Special thanks to Michael Niehaus explaining how the ZtdCorrelationId worked in this Microsoft blog: […]

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Here is a Tip on how to troubleshoot application deployment quickly in MDT Lite Touch. Shorthand version is that you still want to run it in a task sequence, but not wanting to deploy a full operating system just to test or troubleshoot an application. The solution is to create a custom task sequence, that […]

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I've been asked a few times now about what my office / studio setup looks like, and figured it was time to share that 🙂 This is what the studio looks like from behind the scene. Equipment Below is a list of the equipment used: Lights Camera and Capture Card Microphone and External Sound Card […]

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When building reference images for Windows 10 or Windows 11 it's quite useful to block Internet access to that VM (to prevent unwanted updates). This can obviously be done on the router level if using a virtual router, but you can also use native Hyper-V functionality to block a single VM from Internet access. Here […]

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While ConfigMgr has a ready-made task sequence template for the Windows Autopilot for Existing Devices scenario, MDT Lite Touch does not have one. Well, until now that is 🙂 On the link below you can download a new task sequence template for Windows Autopilot as well as the needed scripts and unattend.xml file: Download link: […]

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Originally posted on https://andrewj.net on April 2, 2022 Recently I’ve been working on enrolling devices into co-management and piloting the Windows Updates workload in Intune. The devices I’ve been working with have been compromised of various manufacturers and models with varying life spans – some for years, some much newer. Some had specific Group Policies […]

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When using the Autopilot for Existing Devices scenario, you download one of your existing Autopilot deployment profiles via Microsoft Graph, and then instruct whatever deployment solution you are using to copy the file to the C:\Windows\Provisioning\Autopilot folder. This way you can enroll machines into Intune without having to upload a hardware hash and assign them […]

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For those that tried out the latest Windows ADK for Windows 11 22H2, build 25398, you quickly learned that Microsoft overlooked testing a bit. The VBScript component had been removed, breaking deployment solutions like MDT, or ConfigMgr (when using VBScripts). This post covers a temporary workaround until Microsoft releases an official fix. NOTE: The 25398 […]

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In this post you learn how to configure your ConfigMgr task sequence to add a machine to a collection during deployment via the ConfigMgr AdminService. You will setup a service account, grant the minimal permissions for a service account in ConfigMgr, and then use a PowerShell script in the task sequence to trigger the ConfigMgr […]

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This week I had to find out the command line of a scheduled task from a few hundred machines, to make sure they had received the correct task, deployed from a Group Policy. Well, PowerShell to the rescue. Here is a small PowerShell snippet that will return the command line from a give task: Below […]

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Today we're looking at automated management of Let's Encrypt certificates with PowerShell and a CMG. Let's Encrypt and PowerShell Awhile back I was playing around with Let's Encrypt in order to get as much of my home lab working properly with HTTPS and minimal client configuration. I found many Linux resources and Docker containers to […]

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Here is a quick tip if you are deploying many applications in your task sequence: Make sure that the ConfigMgr client cache size is configured with enough space for your applications. If not, you'll see something like the following: Increasing the ConfigMgr Client Cache Back in the early days of ConfigMgr OSD you needed to […]

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During OS Deployment it's not entirely uncommon to see organizations renaming the local admin directly in the task sequence. There are many options available for doing so, but using a healthy dose of PowerShell is an effective way. 🙂 Using the Rename-LocalUser Cmdlet Below sample gets hold of the local administrator account from its well-known […]

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In my labs I frequently use bandwidth control to simulate different customer environments, allowing me to mimic distributed environments spanning over multiple locations. While Hyper-V itself does support bandwidth limiting, it can only do that on outgoing (outbound) traffic which is not really a real-world scenario where you have routers and WAN links limiting the […]

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