System Center

Most new MS products come with Powershell functionality. It is a good scripting language to learn. I find myself replacing 20 lines of VBScript with 2 lines of Powershell code. Anyone that does Exchange or System Center work should look into learning Powershell.

With that said, here is the second CTP for the next version of Powershell, here.

Here is the official description:
Windows PowerShell V2 CTP2 introduces several significant features to Windows PowerShell 1.0 and Windows PowerShell V2 CTP that extends its use, improves its usability, and allows you to control and manage the Windows environment more easily and comprehensively.

I’m sure the folks at MMS (Microsoft Management Summit) already know this but check out the new features of the upcoming SCVMM release here.

If you don’t know what SCVMM stands for, it’s “System Center Virtual Machine Manager”.

If you want to join the Connect group for SCVMM v2 so that you can download the binaries, go here.

You will have to sign in with your Connect profile to be able to join that group.
Exciting stuff, especially for Hyper-V and Windows 2008.

System Center Mobile Device Manager (MDM) 2008 is a system that enables Windows powered mobile devices to become managed and authenticated members of the IT infrastructure of an organization.

Download it here.

Think of it much like SMS 2003/SCCM 2007 for mobile phones, combined with much better "corporate" management functions for Smartphones.

Bottom line: After upgrading your server to SCOM 2007 SP1, upgrade your agents from RTM to SP1 or they will leak 4MB of memory a day.

Read more about it here. Originally posted here.

Read more about it here and download it from here.

Think of it like "remote management" for your Smartphones/Pocket PCs. Very Blackberry-like, and little bit SCCM-ish.

Short list of features:
1. Device Management solution that integrates directly into a Windows Server infrastructure
2. Full, Over-The-Air device provisioning
3. Automatic deployment of targeted applications to devices
4. Secure data channel from the device to the corporate network
5. Enablement of core LOB scenarios in a mobile environment unlike before

Read more about it here.

FCS uses the MOM infrastructure for event and alert gathering. The version of MOM 2005 included with Forefront Client Security is stripped down and customized quite a bit during the installation of the collection server role. This is part of the reason why you cannot use your existing MOM 2005 infrastructure for FCS v1.

A few important notes:
1. If you have an existing MOM infrastructure, you cannot use it for FCS. Your existing MOM infrastructure and FCS's use of MOM are completely separate.

2. If you do have MOM, you cannot share the One Point (Operations DB) or SystemCenterReporting (Data warehouse DB) with FCS. The two pairs of DB's must always remain separate!

3. If you have an existing MOM infrastructure, you can still monitor those machines using FCS (MOM supports multi-homing the agents).

It may be easier to not think about MOM as a separate prerequisite (like SQL), as the FCS setup handles all the MOM configuration details. If you already have MOM, just remember that you can't use it for FCS and if you don't have MOM, you don't have to worry about installing it, as the setup handles that for you.

Originally gleamed from here, with some of my own notes added.

What good is a program package delivery system without a way to package applications? Thankfully, there is a special version of AdminStudio made just for SCCM that is free. Of course, it doesn't have all the full blown features of AdminStudio Enterprise Edition but it is a good way to get your feet wet in repackaging applications.

To read more about it and download the program, go here.

When installing System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM aka SMS v4), it is not always possible to give internet access to the server involved. I like to have everything I need beforehand whenever doing an install.

When SCCM setup launches, it tries to download the ConfigMgr.Manifest.cab from here. Overall it is best to allow SCCM to grab all the files it needs automatically because the ConfigMgr.Manifest.xml file inside the ConfigMgr.Manifest.cab file can be updated by Microsoft to point to new locations when these files are updated or moved.

With that said, here are the links contained in ConfigMgr.Manifest.XML as of 12-15-07 for the RTM release of SCCM 2007, broken into groups:

Microsoft Remote Differential Compression Library
(x86, x64, ia64)

Windows Update Agent
(x86, x64, ia64)

WMI
(x86, x64, ia64)

BITS
Windows 2000 - KB 842773
(ARA, CHS, CHT, CSY, DAN, DEU, ELL, ENU, ESN, FIN, FRA, HEB, HUN, ITA, JPN, KOR, NLD, NOR, PLK, PTB, PTG, RUS, SVE, TRK)

Windows 2003 - KB 923845
x86: (CHS, CHT, CSY, DEU, ENU, ESN, FRA, HUN, ITA, JPN, KOR, NLD, PLK, PTB, PTG, RUS, SVE, TRK)
x64: (CHS, CHT, DEU, ENU, ESN, FRA, ITA, JPN, KOR, PTB, RUS)
ia64: (DEU, ENU, FRA, JPN)

Windows XP - KB 923845
x86: (ARA, CHS, CHT, CSY, DAN, DEU, ELL, ENU, ESN, FIN, FRA, HEB, HUN, ITA, JPN, KOR, NLD, NOR, PLK, PTB, PTG, RUS, SVE, TRK)

Save all of those files into a directory, and simply point SCCM to that directory for the updates instead of attempting to download them all.

If you are looking for a text file that just has all of the HTTP links inside for use with a downloader program, you can right click and 'Save as' the text file here.

Anyone that deals with .WIM images knows about ImageX and the lack of native GUI interfaces for it. Well, check this out!

GImageX v2.0.1 BETA

- Native x86 and x64 versions entirely written in C++. Tiny ~100KB executable.
- Imagex.exe not required - uses the WIMGAPI interface
- Progress bars, time elapsed, time remaining, file counts have been added
- Clean “abort” option
- Ability to mount, change and get info on WIM images

Grab it here, and make sure to let the authors know what you think of it!

I didn't write it but I'll be adding it to my cache of goodies for SCOM 2007.

From the website
With a help of one of my colleagues we have put together a remote agent prerequisite checker tool for OpsMgr 2007. The new tool allows you to specify multiple computer names to run the check against and accounts for the new prerequisites required by the OpsMgr 2007 agents such as MSXML 6

You can download and read about it here.

Looks like Matt beat me to it, but you can read about the issues fixed in SCOM 2007 SP1 RC here.

20+ issues fixed
1. Error message when you try to access a Web page view in the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Web Console: "Requested value 'UrlViewType' was not found"

2. A notification subscription's Alert Criteria options do not work as expected in System Center Operations Manager 2007

3. When the Health Service (HealthService.exe) runs timed scripts in System Center Operations Manager 2007, high memory usage may occur

4. After a System Center Operations Manager 2007 agent sends discovery data to a management group, no rules are deployed for monitoring in later management groups

5. The System Center Operations Manager 2007 agent is unable to restart the health service after its monitored thresholds are exceeded

6. You cannot install the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting feature in a disjointed namespace environment

7. Some report information does not appear in Japanese in the Japanese version of System Center Operations Manager 2007

8. System Center Operations Manager 2007 cannot find some network devices by using the network device discovery process

9. Some SSL Monitoring monitors display an incorrect status or an incorrect name in System Center Operations Manager 2007

10. Error message when you try to install System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting: "The wizard was interrupted before Operations Manager 2007 could be installed"

11. Subscription notification objects in System Center Operations Manager 2007 may not be displayed correctly on a computer that uses a regional setting other than "English (United States)"

12. Some report information does not appear in Japanese in the Japanese version of System Center Operations Manager 2007

13. Error message when you try to generate a report in System Center Operations Manager 2007: "Cannot initialize report"

14. The Entity Health monitor for an Operations Manager 2007 management server displays "Critical" together with a Health Service threshold setting

15. You cannot deploy an agent by using the Discovery and Installation Wizard in System Center Operations Manager 2007

16. The SQL Server 2000 database engine health is not monitored in System Center Operations Manager 2007

17. You may be unable to delete a log file on a client computer in System Center Operations Manager 2007

18. The Operations Manager Audit Collection Service does not start and Event ID 4668 is logged after you install Audit Collection Server from a read-only source

19. A memory leak occurs if an agent of the release version of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 reports to System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 management servers

20. Management servers that are running the release version of System Center Operations Manager 2007 do not process the agent event data from an agent of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1

Jaime Travez let me know about this and it is worth passing on.

WSUS 3.0 administrators take note - if your WSUS servers error out today or tomorrow, read this article here.

If you are looking for a (sort of) quick unofficial workaround, go here.

It makes me wonder about WSUS's SQL sanitizing overall if something as simple as this could break the application. Makes me wonder about SQL injection and other 'bad' things that might be able to run.

I suspect/expect an official fix will come out soon.

Update - 11/13/07 12:30am EST: It looks like they are fixing it.

If you have used BDD 2007, you should check out Microsoft Deployment. It is the next gen version of BDD 2007. It is also incredibly handy when doing DDPS (Desktop Deployment Professional Services) engagements for Microsoft EA/SA customers.

What's new? A lot.

As noted here, integration with SCCM 2007 and more.

Microsoft Deployment also enhances the Lite Touch Installation (LTI) for deploying desktops and servers. This release allows LTI users to:

1. Deploy pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008, including support for Server Core.
2. Automate server role definition using Server Manager.
3. Configure disk and network interface cards (NICs), including static TCP/IP configuration.
4. Migrate from LTI to Configuration Manager 2007.
5. Create custom task sequences or modify task sequences based on new templates for: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and a replace scenario template.
6. Invoke Web service calls from rules.
7. Deploy operating system images using the new multicast feature in Windows Server 2008 Windows Deployment Services.

You can grab it here.

It is still free too.

Originally spotted here.

The release candidate for Service Pack 1 for Operations Manager 2007 is ready for download from here.

Mostly addresses critical customer initiated issues including roll-up of all hotfixes.

Note
Read the release notes and upgrade guide included with this release and carefully follow the instructions.

This is a fully supported release - support is available through the standard Microsoft Support channels and also via our newsgroup microsoft.public.opsmgr.sp1

The release candidate will be fully upgradable to the final RTM release of SP1 (currently scheduled for mid-February 2008)