blogs.catapultsystems.com

It is pretty well known how to add custom extensions to the Configuration  Manager hardware inventory using sms_def.mof and configuration.mof. What isn’t well-known or documented (at least not that I could find), was how to check-up on or remove a custom extension from ConfigMgr manually. There are two tools that can help you with deleting the extension: delgrp.exe (available from the SMS 2003 resource kit) and SiteSweeper from SCCMExperts. But what do you do if these tools aren’t working for you or you simply want to check up on your extension? First, it is important to note that a best practice for custom inventory extensions is to always test them on a test ConfigMgr site; however, most folks don’t have test installations of ConfigMgr and even if they do, the data isn’t necessarily r...

Today we received a couple of alerts from the Active Directory 2008 management pack for a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 domain controller. They caught my eye because they did not have alert descriptions and in one case there was no Alert name. Normally I would post these as ReSearch This kb articles (see http://www.systemcentercentral.com/default.aspx?tabid=39&search=KB) but generally there are three required pieces of information: The Alert, the Issue, and the Resolution. In both cases there was no alert description and in one of these cases we do not have alert text. Both of these alerts occurred at the same time on the same domain controller: Alert: Overall Essential Services state Issue: The Overall Essential Services state monitor portion of the Active Directory Domain Contro...

I ran my first upgrade today to from Windows Server 2008 SP1 to Windows Server 2008 SP2. The installation was for a domain controller running in a virtual (Hyper-V) and it ran for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. At this point it appears to be working without issues. A quick video of the upgrade (less than a minute) is attached to this blog entry to give an idea what the process looks like. ...

At Catapult we recently implemented Unified Communications all the way to our phones. I love the functionality and reach provided by the UC solution. I love getting voice mail in my Inbox. I have to be more careful about my Communicator Status, but that is easy. We needed an easy way to enable calling and lookup inside the company. We already had People search so I decided to add the ability to click the displayed phone number to call the found person. It just requires adding a hyperlink with the TEL: prefix. People Search There are two web parts that display the people results, “Search High Confidence Results” and “People Search Core Results”. Both need to be edited but the changes are the same. Begin by placing the page in edit mode. Site Actions | Edit Page. Once in edit m...

    Today, I was honored with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award for System Center Configuration Manager. I am humbled, excited, encouraged, enthusiastic, and truly honored. A big thank you to anyone and everyone who has supported me over the past years and enabled me to achieve this level of recognition from the company whose products my career revolves around. ...

While upgrading workstations from SMS client to SCCM client, I ran into several workstations having WMI errors in the CCMSETUP.LOG file, specifically; "MSI: Warning 25001. Setup failed due to unexpected circumstance. The error code is 80041001" I was able to resolve this by following the process outlined below. Uninstall the SCCM client by running "%WinDir%\System32\ccmsetup\ccmsetup.exe /uninstall" Click on Start --> Run --> Type "services.msc" --> <enter> Stop the "Windows Management Instrumentation" service Open Windows Explorer and go to "%WinDir%\System32\Webem\Repository" Rename the Repository folder to "OLDRepository" Go back to Services.msc and start the "Windows Management Instrum...

I was tasked with migrating Rights Management Services ( RMS ) to Active Directory Rights Management Services ( AD RMS ) for a client.  The old RMS server was Windows 2003 with RMS installed and in production.  That same server also hosted the RMS database.  The new AD RMS server was of course Windows 2008 that would host the new database.  The first thing I wanted to do was to move the SQL database from the old server to the new server, test, and let the dust settle.  I followed Microsoft’s TechNet article http://bit.ly/WZaOl  with no problems.   I then followed Microsoft’s TechNet article http://bit.ly/YoErt to migrate.  Everything looked fine until users tried to open protected emails and documents.  They would get the error “You do not have credentials that allow you to open this ...

Seeing as my last post was on how to incorporate risk assessments into schedule design, I decided to post information on how to create buffers in Microsoft Project Professional. Note that this post is not the definitive guide to incorporate risk-loaded schedules in Microsoft Project, but instead represents concepts of how to incorporate risk into the schedule.  You will have to tailor these suggestions to the specific processes of your own organization. Here goes: There are three kinds of buffers that you might want to account for in your schedule: 1) Schedule Buffer 2) Cost Buffer 3) Effort Buffer   Today, I’ll present Schedule Buffer.  Cost and Effort will be another post.    I’ve played around with various methods of tracking buffers in Microsoft Project, and this approach se...

A new feature of Configuration Manager 2007 R2 is the ability to define a Task Sequence Variable on a Collection or individual resource without a value. Then when the Task Sequence initiates on a system, a dialog box is presented where you can set the value of the variable. A quick example is in order to demonstrate this: Create a TS. Use the intended variable in a conditional or in any other way that variables can be used. For this example, I simply set a condition on the install of XML Notepad: it will only be installed if the TS variable InstallXMLNotepad is set to Yes. Advertise it to a collection. Set the InstallXMLNotepad variable on the targeted collection but do not defined a value; i.e., leave it blank. To set a variable on a collection, right-click it a...

This is a blog post that I’ve been kicking around for a couple of years, and is based on a demonstration that I often do in my Scheduling classes.  Note that this posting is meant more to demonstrate a concept within the tool, and as it is based on a customized third party macro, is not a step by step guide on how to accomplish the exact results. That being said, if set up properly, the entire process can be quite quick and easy. The PMBOK Guide 3rd Edition identifies the following Time Management Processes:   1) Activity Definition 2) Activity Sequencing 3) Activity Resource Estimating 4) Duration Estimating 5) Schedule Development 6) Schedule Control   ….and I admit that I have a copy of the 4th Edition, but can’t claim to have mastered the nuances of th...