Just a quick update. Package Conversion Manager 2.0.1 is now available for download here. The problem outlined in the previous blog post has been resolved with 2.0.1's installers.
Please visit the PCM Home page to get started or follow the links below to download PCM for any of the appropriate languages:
· English · Chinese · German · French · Japanese · Russian
· English
· Chinese
· German
· French
· Japanese
· Russian
PCM 2.0.1 will be fully supported through CSS just as 1.0 was. This support will be valid for 1 year from it's release date.
Due to differences between ConfigMgr 2012 RTW and SP1 the same PCM code base needed to be compiled differently for these versions. This means that the installer needed to determine which set of binaries to install on a machine based on the Configuration Manager console version. To determine this the installer looks at the version of Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.exe and then installs the appropriate set of binaries. The installer is looking in the default location, %programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\bin, for this binary and if it doesn't find it the installer still appears to install successfully. However, PCM wasn't actually installed at all.
Before I get into the actual workaround let me just say there have been a few people who I talked to about the problem and they all asked, "Do I really need to uninstall my console and reinstall it to the default location?" No, you do not need to reinstall your console to the default location. Yes, that will work, but we should be able to get it to work without reinstalling the console at all. Currently the best workaround to get the appropriate set of PCM binaries installed is to copy the Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.exe from wherever the console is currently installed into %programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\bin (creating the directories if you have to) then run the installer.
We are still checking into our options, but in the meantime I hope this helps those of you that are running into this issue.
Thanks,
Cameron
System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 has been released. This release of Package Conversion Manager (PCM) supports that release. PCM was originally released to support RTM of ConfigMgr 2012 and due to changes made in service pack 1 we had to update PCM.
Download Package Conversion Manager 2.0 from the Microsoft Download Center today.
Although there have been a few bug fixes, the main difference between PCM 1.0 and 2.0 are small changes required to support ConfigMgr SP1. However, some of these changes are not compatible with the RTM version of ConfigMgr 2012. Despite this we have been able to get PCM into a single installer which supports both ConfigMgr 2012 RTM and SP1. Therefore, you can use a single download of PCM for either RTM or SP1 for any of the languages which are supported.
PCM 2.0 will be fully supported through CSS just as 1.0 was. This support will be valid for 1 year from 2.0's release date.
You probably have many collections each of which contain one or more query in order to populate each collection. Additionally your programs may have requirements set on them as well. These options are available to make sure that software will successfully install and at the same time allows you to target the appropriate users and devices that are applicable to install the software. However, now that the app model allows you to set requirements for apps to install why would you leave the software requirements portion of your targeting intent in your collection queries? In this new model you can concentrate on making sure that the right users and devices are targeted with an app rather than building tons of collections and queries to make sure the user's machine has the minimum amount of disk space, memory, and operating system to run an application being deployed.
Package Conversion Manager (PCM) makes it easy to move to this new model by allowing you to convert your collection queries at the same time as converting your packages to app model applications. In this blog post we will walk through some examples of collection queries and program requirements being converted into global conditions or requirements and finally what the finished product looks like with requirement rules added to your application.
First lets walk through a couple of collection queries which we will use to convert to global conditions and requirement rules and how these queries are chosen for conversion during the process. When an application is selected for the fix and convert process, Package Conversion Manager will interrogate the collections that the package's program(s) are deployed to in order to present the PCM admin doing the conversion with a list of queries which can be converted to global conditions and requirement rules.
Say for example there is a collection which contains a couple of queries used to populate the collection.
One for adding devices which contain 2 processors:
select R.ResourceID,R.ResourceType,R.Name,R.SMSUniqueIdentifier,R.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,R.Client from SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM as G inner join SMS_R_System as R on G.ResourceID = R.ResourceID where G.NumberOfProcessors = 2
The other collection query for adding a computer with a specific name:
select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_SYSTEM where NetBiosName = 'pcmdemo'
Of course you probably have queries which are a lot more complex, but these are just a couple of simple examples of collection queries which can be converted. We will discuss how these queries will be converted when we discuss the fix and convert process below.
Note: Not all queries can be converted and I have added a few examples of queries which can't be converted in the FAQ section below.
Now that we have briefly covered a couple of collection queries which can be converted let's talk about one other piece of information which can be converted. If you have set OS requirements on programs PCM will allow you to also convert these requirements to the app model. Below is an example of a program requiring any 64 bit Windows 7 OS which can be converted over to the app model.
We will walk through how this requirement can be converted below when we walk through the Fix and Convert process.
In this section we will walk through how the above collection queries and program requirement can be converted into global conditions and requirement rules using PCM's Fix and Convert wizard and where these requirements land in the app model after the conversion. Now let's walk through converting the above queries to global conditions and requirement rules at the same time as we convert a package and its program(s) to an application and deployment type(s).
The first thing you will do is find and select the package that you would like to convert to the application model. It is important to remember that collection queries are only converted to the app model while converting a package which contains one or more programs which are deployed to the collection containing queries. Likewise requirements will only get converted if a package's program(s) contain OS requirements. Of course you could also manually set these up, but PCM does this automatically for you when converting your packages to applications using the Fix and Convert Wizard. The important thing to understand is PCM doesn't provide a way to convert collection queries or program requirements outside of converting packages to applications. Additionally you may be thinking that the fix and convert wizard is only for converting those applications which are broken or have a state of manual, but this isn't always the case. If you want to convert your collection queries or program requirements into global conditions and requirement rules then you will need to use the fix and convert wizard.
Once you have identified the package that is tied to a collection query or OS requirement that you would like to convert you can select the Fix and Convert option from either the ribbon item or right clicking menu.
Walk through the wizard which will display until you get to the Requirement Selection page. From this page you can select each of the programs which will be converted to deployment types in order to select the collection queries and program requirements that will be converted to global conditions and requirement rules. Below is an example of the page which is displayed allowing you to select the different collection queries and program requirements available from each program.
From this page you can pick and choose which collection queries and Program Requirements you would like to convert during the conversion process. Once you select the queries and requirements you would like to convert and finish out of the wizard, PCM will create the applications, Deployment Types, Global Conditions and then add these as requirements to the converted Deployment Type(s).
Additionally if we look at the global conditions after the conversion process completes for the above application we can see that a custom global condition has been created from the NetBIOS Name collection query.
Additionally if we open up the converted application we can see that the collection queries and program requirements which we selected and created during the conversion process all show up as requirements on the application.
Note: If you analyze a package and it has a readiness state of automatic you will still need to use the fix and convert wizard in order to convert the collection queries and program requirements to global conditions and requirement rules. I know that I stated this above, but thought it was important enough to mention again.
In this section I have added a few FAQs specific to converting collection queries and requirement rules along with their answers.
Will PCM successfully convert multiple programs with different OS requirements and attach the appropriate requirements to the appropriate DTs which were converted?
When walking through the fix and convert wizard the requirement selection page will allow you to select a DT, which will be created from the program, and then allow you to select the requirements which you would like to convert and add to the deployment type's requirements. Yes, you can pick and choose which requirements to add to each of the deployment types and these will get added.
Which Collection queries will not be converted?
Here are a few examples of queries which won't get converted as they really don't tie to software requirements and shouldn't be converted to global conditions or requirement rules:
There are also queries which can't be converted as deconstructing the queries would be very difficult. One example of this type includes queries which contain multiple select statements.
Additional there are keywords which PCM doesn't support in queries:
What happens if I already converted a collection query to a global condition and then convert another package\program which is deployed to the same or different collection which contains the same query?
Regardless if a collection query is on one or multiple collections it will only be converted once. If you convert a second application which is deployed to a collection containing that same collection query the previously converted global condition will be added as a requirement to the converted deployment type.
Package Conversion Manager provides an easy to use interface for converting packages to ConfigMgr 2012 app model applications which greatly reduces the amount of time as well as the number of mistakes that might be made if manually converting ConfigMgr packages to app model apps. PCM also comes with a number of features. These include:
With System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager Beta being made available there is a new version of Package Conversion Manager. Please take a look below for the appropriate version of PCM to download and install.
In order to install Package Conversion Manager the ConfigMgr console must be installed. To find out more about the requirements for the ConfigMgr console please take a look at the information found here. There is a version of PCM for ConfigMgr 2012 and a version for ConfigMgr SP1 Beta. So depending on the version of the Configuration Manager console which is installed will depend on the version of PCM you will need to download. The sections below outlines each of the downloads that are available for PCM.
System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager Package Conversion Manager 2.0 Beta has released and is available from the download page here. There are no new features or functionality in the 2.0 version of PCM over the previous version, however as there were a number of changes made in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 Beta, which are incompatible with the previously released version of PCM, a new version of Package Conversion Manager was required to be released. If you have System Center 2012 Configuration Manager 2012 RTW then please take a look at the section below. It is important to note that this version of PCM is available in English only.
To find out more about System Center 2012 SP1 Beta and the various files that can be downloaded take a look here.
If you have System Center 2012 Configuration Manager RTW you should not use the SP1 version above as it is not compatible, but instead should use the previously released version available here. As mentioned above there are no changes as far as features between the previously released version that is available in this section and the 2.0 version available above other than compatibility between consoles.
I have been meaning to write this blog for a while. Through the UDI Designer there is no way to add additional stage or stage groups. However, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. This just means that you must do it manually.
It is a very simple process to add in additional stages or stage groups and once done you can use these stage groups or stages with the designer like any of the existing stage or stage groups and you can use stages with the wizard like any other stage.
To add in a stage group simply edit your configuration file in your favorite XML editor, copy and paste an existing stage group (these are all defined at the bottom of the XML) in the order you would like your stage group to appear among the other stage groups and then rename the stage group to something unique then save the config file.This same process applies to stages only stages should be copied under a stage group.
Here is an example of how we would copy the Replace stage group and rename it along with its stages to make a new stage group and stages.
Copy the Replace Stage group and its Stages:
1: <StageGroup DisplayName="Replace">
2: <Stage Name="REPLACE" DisplayName="Replace, in full OS">
3: <PageRef Page="WelcomePageReplace" />
4: <PageRef Page="ConfigScanPage" />
5: <PageRef Page="RebootPage" />
6: </Stage>
7: <Stage Name="REPLACE.WinPE" DisplayName="Replace, in WinPE">
8: <PageRef Page="UserCapturePageOldPC" />
9: <PageRef Page="ProgressPage" />
10: <PageRef Page="RebootAfterCapture" />
11: </Stage>
12: </StageGroup>
Paste the stage group and rename it and its stages appropriately:
13: <StageGroup DisplayName="MyNewStageGroup">
14: <Stage Name="NEWSTAGE1" DisplayName="New stage 1">
15: <PageRef Page="WelcomePageReplace" />
16: <PageRef Page="ConfigScanPage" />
17: <PageRef Page="RebootPage" />
18: </Stage>
19: <Stage Name="NEWSTAGE2" DisplayName="New stage 2">
20: <PageRef Page="UserCapturePageOldPC" />
21: <PageRef Page="ProgressPage" />
22: <PageRef Page="RebootAfterCapture" />
23: </Stage>
24: </StageGroup>
In the above example line 13 through 24 shows the new stage group.
Once you have done this you can use the stage groups and stages as you could any other stage or stage group in the designer and wizard.
If you are using MDT 2012 Update 1 UDI and are configuring language settings, you may have run into the problem setting up your User Locale. In MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta the UDI wizard was setting InputLocale when it should have been setting UserLocale. As this was found at the last minute before releasing there was a workaround put in place in order to set the appropriate task sequence variable. Rather than changing this variable in compiled code which is a bit more costly and risky the workaround was added to the UDI Wizard script wrapper (UDIWizard.wsf). The script wrapper would simply read what the UDI Wizard set the InputLocale task sequence variable to once it exited and then set UserLocale to that same value.
Why is this a problem? It is a problem because the wizard was fixed in the released version of MDT 2012 Update 1, but the script wrapper was never fixed to remove the line which sets UserLocale with the value of InputLocale. So what does this mean? It means that the wizard sets the UserLocale correctly based on what the end user selects when the wizard exits, the script wrapper will then read InputLocale, which is no longer set, and sets UserLocale with this value. Thus UserLocale is always set to blank.
Luckly this problem is very easy to fix. You simply need to modify the script wrapper, udiwizard.wsf file, in the toolkit package under the scripts directory and either comment out or remove the following line:oEnvironment.Item("UserLocale") = oEnvironment.Item("InputLocale")
Don't forget to update your distribution points on your MDT Toolkit package once you make this change.
Variables used on the language page:
Language pack to install
Customer's have asked how do I default language options to the default language set on a machine. UDI doesn't provide any detection for determining which language had been set on a machine. However, it does provide a way to default to a language setting. So if you have added logic to a script you can simply set the appropriate task sequence variables prior to the wizard loading in order to default to those settings. The one thing to call out here is that the values used in task sequence variable must match the case of the values in the dropdown list in order to default to a value. In other words if you want to default to French for a language pack to install that language pack must be available in the list, and you must set UILanguage to FR-FR not fr-FR.
Keyboard Layout
Additionally if you wanted to set the keyboard layout to French for example you should set the KeyboardLocale variable to either 040c:0000040c or 0000040c. Do not set the variable to the following format 0x0000040c.
It just seems like yesterday that we released MDT 2012 and now we have turned around and released MDT 2012 Update 1 available for download here. Compared with MDT 2012 the journey to releasing Update 1 has been a much shorter. Regardless of this short time period some powerful features and enhancements have been added to the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
Now let's get into the details of the UDI enhancements a bit more. There is a lot to talk about here so I will just give a high-level overview and save the details for additional blog posts.
With Windows 8 and 2012 releasing to PC OEM and manufacturing partners, more information for which can be found here for Win8 and here for Server 2012, we are excited to be able to support deployments of these operating systems as well as provide support for some of the key new features they provide. Of course UDI allows for backing up and restoring data using the newest version of USMT, but how about Windows 8 apps?
If you are using the Application Catalog and are using Configuration Manager 2012 Service Pack 1 (the SP1 is required for deploying Windows 8 apps from ConfigMgr) then you can take advantage of allowing users to select Windows 8 app package (.appx) as part of their OS deployments from the software page of the UDI wizard. Some of you may ask, but how is that going to work as the selected apps and packages will install as part of the task sequence which doesn't support installing Windows 8 apps as they need to install as a user. However, UDI tags these apps differently and doesn't attempt to install these types of apps as part of the task sequence. Instead it uses a tool called AppInstall.exe which interfaces with Configuration manager's app catalog in order to trigger an install for app model apps, including Windows app packages (.appx), after the user logs in. To hear more about how to setup applications as well as leverage AppDiscovery to detect applications for reinstall I have put together a video covering this topic here.
To find out more information about how to prepair for deploying these type of apps check out this blog post which talks about everything from how to sign the apps to the group policy needed in your environment for deploying these type of apps.
Although I will talk in detail about BYOP in future blog posts and videos, the BYOP feature will allow you build pages by simply dragging a set of controls onto a page and setting the appropriate information around those controls such as which task sequence variable should be set or the default for the control. Controls which you can drag onto a BYOP page include CheckBoxes, ComboBoxes, Lines (used to section a page out), labels, radio buttons, Bitmaps, and textboxes.
Although there are any number of pages which you could build using BYOP you can also use this powerful feature with your Windows 8 deployments. As an example the simple page in the screenshot above is an example of how you could allow a user to select whether to enable pushbutton reset as part of their Windows 8 deployment which would allow them to rollback to a fresh version of their operating system if enabled. To see more information on push button reset see the following TechNet article here.
Put your users or deployment techs in the driver's seat by downloading MDT 2012 Update 1 and starting your deployments with UDI today.
In an effort to inform those who are currently using or are planning on using UDI about the features available in MDT 2012 we have put together a video series covering UDI. I know what you are thinking: "But Update 1 Beta1 is already available". These videos still apply to Update 1 and I will point out any changes that are different between the two.
In this video we discuss how to configure the Replace scenario for UDI which allows you to capture user state and data from your old PC and replace it on your new PC. The first part of the Replace scenario is configured in 2 stages called Replace and Replace.WinPE while the second part of this scenario uses one of the 2 New Computer stages to restore user state during an OS deployment to a New PC. For more detail on the New Comptuer stages discussed in this video check out the following blog covering the New Computer scenarios found here.
As part of this video we talk through what the minimum pages needing to be configured for the Replace stages. This really boils down to configuring the user state page if you would like to make capturing user state to network locations available to your end users. There are a number of factors which affect the user state page such as the mode the page is set to (capture or restore), environment the wizard is launched from (WinPE, or the full OS), and whether the format checkbox is checked or unchecked. These are outlined in this video and will be covered in more detail in a later blog. Additionally the user state page encrypts the user state data and hashes the directory the user state page is captured to when capturing to a USB or network location which is also discussed in this video.
In addition we discuss that you will have to have your applications configured and set with mappings if you would like to discover your installed applications on your old PC and have these default selected for reinstallation during a deployment on your new PC. For more information on how to configure software installation with UDI and setup Application Discovery to discover software for reinstall checkout the Application Discovery video in the UDI Video Series.
To help you get started in configuring the Replace Scenario please check out this video:
Configuring-MDT-2012-UDI-Replace-Computer-Scenario
One thing that was left out of this video was the option to prompt and format the USB drive from the user state page. This ensures that only one set of user state data is on the USB drive when capturing and restoring during an OS deployment. These options are available for configuration in the USB Combo Box on the User State (Select Target) page in the designer.
I hope you enjoy this video and please check back to see additional videos covering User Driven Installation.
Updated in MDT 2012 UDI Update 1: One of the things that was enhanced in Update 1 UDI was the ability to seperate the credentials used for connecting to a network location and the credentials used for encrypting the data and hashing the directory in which it is stored. In MDT 2012 these weren't seperated and caused problems when attempting to image multiple machines at the same time while using a network location for capturing and restoring user state. I will be putting together a seperate blog post on how this is configured in the future.
In this video we discuss how to configure UDI for New Computer scenarios used to deploy to bare-metal devices with no operating system installed on the hardware. The New Comptuer stages discussed in this video are also used in the second part of the replace scenario in which user state is captured from an old PC and replaced on a new PC. A blog covering the replace scenario can be found here.
As part of this video we talk through what the minimum pages needing to be configured for both the New Computer and New Computer.Prestaged stages are and what the diffences are between the two. This video doesn't talk through User Device Affinity (UDA), but I have put together a blog post available here discussing UDA. I will point out that UDA only works in the New Computer scenario however.
To help you get started in configuring either of these New Computer scenarios please check out this video:
Configuring MDT 2012 UDI for Pre-Staged New Computer
Please check back to see additional videos covering User Driven Installation.
Wouldn't it be nice if at the end of an OS Deployment a user could login and their needed applications where already installed and ready for users to use and be productive? This is exactly what the application discovery feature In UDI does. Many of you may be wondering what you need to know in order to configure packages and applications for installation during an OS deployment using UDI. To make it as easy as possible for the ITPro and seamless for the end user there are a number of features that UDI includes for software deployment. For the ITPro it is as easy as setting up their applications along with the appropriate mappings and allowing their users to walk through the UDI wizard as part of an OS Deployment in order to have applications automatically selected for reinstalled during the deployment process.
Application Discovery will execute on your old computer (in Replace Scenario) or your current OS (Refresh scenario) to detect the applications installed based on either a ConfigMgr or PID based mapping(s) that the ITPro setup. Provided the software in which the mappings are configured for is configured as either a package or application in Configuration Manager it will be reinstalled during the deployment process.
To help you learn more about Application Discovery and provide a general overview of package and application configuration with UDI, we’ve outlined in a video how to set up software with application discovery to detect and re-install package and applications using MDT 2012 UDI.
Leveraging Application Discovery with MDT 2012 User-Driven Installation
New in MDT 2012 Update1: The UDI Designer automatically configures Configuration Manager and PID (if an MSI based DT) mappings for app model applications which are added to the software page. Do keep in mind if you would like multiple versions of an application to be detected for reinstall then you will have to add these additional versions. The Designer will only add mappings for the versions of the software which was added to the application page.
Download MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta 1 now!
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Update 1 Beta 1 is now available for download! This release expands your deployment capabilities with support for the latest released software, including Windows 8 Release Preview, Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate, and System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 Community Technology Preview.
Build Your Own Page (BYOP) support for User-Driven Installation (UDI)
enabling IT pros to create new wizard pages using simple drag-and-drop operations for a few controls – nocoding required.
DaRT 8
Support for using the DaRT 8 Beta with the Windows 8 Release Preview version of the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK).
Integration with System Center Orchestrator
Enabling task sequences to invoke Orchestrator runbooks at any point in the deployment process.
Support for PowerShell 3.0
making it easier to run PowerShell scripts inside task sequences on Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and Windows PE 4.0.
And much more
Download MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta 1 now
Tellus what you think!We value your input; this is the perfect opportunity to be heard so send us your feedback through the Connect site.
Already using theMicrosoft Deployment Toolkit? We’d like to hear about your experiences.
If you are not already a member of the MDT Connect program, click here to join.
If you are running MDT 2012 UDI on a 64 bit OS and are using System Center 2012 ConfigMgr (64-bit ConfigMgr client) then you may be running into an issue in which none of the task sequence variables get read or set from the UDI wizard. This problem occurs due to the wrong version of the UDI wizard being launched and therefore the wizard does not have access to the task sequence environment. This is happening because the UDIWizard.wsf script is setting the wrong working directory, but luckily is an easy fix. You will simply need to modify the section of the UDIWizard.wsf that sets the working directory.
In the UDIWizard.wsf script change the following:
' Set the working directory
'If oEnvironment.Item("OSVersion") = "WinPE" then If ucase(oEnvironment.Item("Architecture")) = "X64" then sWorkingDir = oEnvironment.Substitute("%TOOLROOT%") Else sWorkingDir = oEnvironment.Substitute("%DEPLOYROOT%\Tools\x86") End if oLogging.CreateEntry "Working directory: " & sWorkingDir, LogTypeInfo oShell.CurrentDirectory = sWorkingDir
To:
'If oEnvironment.Item("OSVersion") = "WinPE" then If UCase(oEnv("PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE")) = "AMD64" then sWorkingDir = oEnvironment.Substitute("%DEPLOYROOT%\Tools\x64") Else sWorkingDir = oEnvironment.Substitute("%DEPLOYROOT%\Tools\x86") End if oLogging.CreateEntry "Working directory: " & sWorkingDir, LogTypeInfo oShell.CurrentDirectory = sWorkingDir
You should make this change in the Scripts directory on the machine in which you installed MDT as well as any MDT Toolkit package that you are using.
Note that this problem only occurs when running MDT 2012 UDI on a machine which has a ConfigMgr 2012 64-bit client. This problem does not occur while in WinPE or when deploying via ConfigMgr 2007. Additionally this does not happen with MDT 2012 Update 1 a Beta of which can be found here.
It has been a long road, but MDT 2012 has finally released with tons of new features and functionality galore. Download MDT 2012 today to take advantage of all of the new features and functionality available for deployments. Check MDT 2012’s Download Center Page for an overview of the features and functionality available in MDT 2012, links to download MDT, as well as documentation for this release.
If you follow my blog posts then you know that I mainly write about UDI so I would like to highlight a few features that are available in this release of MDT 2012 UDI.
MDT 2012 provides support for both Configuration Manager 2012 and 2007.
Completely rebuilt designer and wizard
Designer allows for adding multiple instance of a page or a new page to the page library allowing for keeping everything in one config file
Designer allows for dragging and dropping pages from the page library to a stage in the flow, or within a stage to arrange the order of pages, allowing IT Pros to easily design their deployment experience and configure a page once and use in multiple places
BitLocker Page - Allows for setting BitLocker along with various options
Support for both packages and ConfigMgr 2012 App Model applications from all of UDI’s components
AppInstaller which ties what users select from the application page of the wizard to what is deployed to a primary user of a machine allowing for user centric computing
Download MDT 2012 today and tell your peers, customers, and anyone wanting to learn more on OS deployment about MDT 2012! Let us know your thoughts by sending your questions or feedback about MDT 2012 directly to us via www.Connect.microsoft.com.
As part of ConfigMgr's move towards user centric, ConfigMgr User Device Affinity(UDA) allows you to define a relationship between a user(s) and a device. This can be done through the ConfigMgr console, but it can also be done as part of an OS deployment. John Vintzel has posted a blog discussing this concept here. Additionally there is a related topic on TechNet here. These gives a good overview of the process, but I would like to discuss this concept further in this blog post as it applies to User Driven Installation (UDI).
As part of MDT 2012 UDI there is a new wizard page for setting User Device Affinity as part of the task sequence as well as a designer page for configuring the UDA page. The User Device Affinity wizard page is very simple. It has a checkbox allowing you to select whether UDA should be set or not and a textbox allowing you to set a comma delimited list of users.
Don't be fooled into thinking that UDA is simple by the simplisity of this page however. There are a number of criteria that must be met in order to have a user set as a primary user of a device automatically as part of the OS deployment process.
The first thing to note is that this only works with new computers. When I say new computers I don't just mean the new computer scenario I mean that a new computer object will be setup in ConfigMgr as part of the OS Deployment. An existing computer object cannot be used as part of the deployment otherwise it will not work and the only way to set UDA is from the console.
Remember this is only for new computers so the deployment will occur using a PXE service point or bootable media. As such there is a Primary User Assignment setting that must be set on the PXE service point or bootable media. These can be set to any of the following settings
Do Not Allow UDA
Allow UDA Pending Administrators Approval
Allow UDA with Auto-Approval
In order to have the primary user setup automatically as part of the detployment you must set this setting to Allow UDA with Auto-Approval.
The users added from the UDA page of the wizard must be known users in ConfigMgr. Either set Active Directory User Discovery or import the users through the console
The SMSTSAssignUsersMode task sequence variable must be set in the task sequence prior to the wizard loading. This setting can be set to any of the follwing settings:
Auto: The task sequence automatically creates a relationship between the user and destination computer and deploys the operating system.
Pending: The task sequence creates a relationship between the user and the destination computer, but waits for approval from the administrative user before the operating system is deployed.
Disabled: The task sequence does not associate a user with the destination computer and continues to deploy the operating system.
In order to automatically set the user account as a primary user of a machine SMSTSAssignUsersMode must be set to Auto. If this isn't set prior to the wizard loading in the task sequence the wizard will set this variable to Pending.
Finally set the users which you would like to add as primary user through the UDA page of the wizard. This can be a comma separated list of users using the folling as an example: domain\user, domain\user. The contents of the textbox will be set as the value for the SMSTSUdaUsers variable. It is important to note that we have attempted to set an FQDN for the domain such as Contoso.corp.forest.com\user and it did not correctly set the user as a primary user of the device.
I hope that gives you a good overview of how to setup UDA as it pertains to UDI. Next we will be discussing how this setting is used with UDI's AppInstall.exe to install applications.
MMS is around the corner and there are tons of sessions and knowledge to take away. This sold out conference is a standard for anyone using or planning to use System Center products, but of course that there is much more to the conference than just that. This year there will be plenty of discussion on the abundance of new products, new features in the products you are using today, and a ton of ideas on how you can improve your business in the future. Not to mention plenty of oportunities to meet the people driving the products as well as others who are using them. While at MMS I will be presenting on MDT 2012 User Driven Installation (UDI).
I will be talking through the new features and functionality that are available with MDT 2012 UDI. This will include the IT Pro experience and the new features that are included with the designer such as the page library and page flow which I blogged about previously. Additionally I will be discussing the new deployment scenarios and AppInstall executable, used when provisioning app model apps through a task sequence, both of which are available with MDT 2012 UDI. On top of this I will be discussing the end user experience and UDI's extensibility. If this sounds interesting come check out the session below.
CD-B337 Deploying Windows: Extending Microsoft Deployment Toolkit UDI 2012 to Customize the Deployment Experience
Time: 2:15 PM
Date: Tuesday, April 17th
I know that they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but this is one of those times it doesn't need to. Come to MMS and take the knowledge home. I hope to see you there!
MDT 2012 RC1, including the new version of User Driven Installation(UDI), is now available for download. To participate, register for MDT 2012 RC 1 at Microsoft Connect.
This update provides support for Configuration Manager 2012 RC2 releases. MDT 2012 fully leverages the capabilities provided by Configuration Manager 2012 for OS deployment.
Customize Deployment Questions: For System Center Configuration Manager customers the latest version of MDT offers new User-Driven Installation components and improved wizard and designer extensibility
Bug Fixes: There are a number of bug fixes which have also been included in this release such as appropriately setting mappings for applications
Additional Enhancements: There are a number of enhancements which have also been made such as the ability to multi-select OUs for addition to the computer page.
So what are you waiting for? Follow the steps below to participate in the MDT 2012 RC1.
The MDT 2012 UDI Designer has a new concept called the Page Library. The Page Library allows you to see all of the page types and instances that are available from the configuration file you are editing. Prior to MDT 2012 UDI if you wanted a page with different information you had to have multiple configuration files. However, as is described in the video below with MDT 2012 UDI, you can have one or more instance for each page type. By allowing multiple page instances, each configured differently, UDI supports the ability to run all scenarios from a single configuration file which is one of the key goals that we had in mind for MDT 2012 UDI.
Another key goal for MDT 2012 UDI was the ability to configure once and use in multiple places.This is accomplished between the Page Library and the designer flow. The Page Library allows you to configure each of the instances of a page and also drag and drop these page instances into one or more of the stages in the flow. To see more information on the page flow please take a look at my previous blog post on the flow. There are several right click and ribbon item actions that you can take from the flow which can affect page instances in the Page Library. Let's walk through these as well as some of the other aspects of the Page Library.
The Page Library tells you how many times each page instance is used throughout the flow of the loaded config file on the right hand side of the page instance as can be seen in the picture below. As you drag and drop pages from the Page Library into the flow or remove page items from the flow the number will increment or decrement accordingly.
The Page Library displays a picture of the page and tells you which stages of the flow that page is used in. This should hopefully help to identify which page you are about to either configure or drag into the flow, as well as help identify where in the flow a page is being used. If you want to remove a page from the Page Library this will help you identify which stages you will need to first remove those pages from before removing the page from the Page Library. Additionally it should help you understand that configuring or editing the page instance will mean changing the configuration for each of the stages that the page resides in.
You can configure a page instance by either double clicking on it in the Page Library or flow or by selecting the page instance from either the Page Library or flow and then selecting the configure tab next to the flow tab. This will display the page editor which will allow you to start configuring each of the controls and fields on the page in the desired manner.
Page instances can be both added and removed from the Page Library. In this section I will walk you through both.
From the Page Library you can add in additional instances of one of the pages provided natively with MDT 2012 UDI or if you have taken advantage of the SDK, which I will blog about later, you can add in your own custom editor for the custom wizard page which was built. This can be done by selecting the "Add Page" ribbon item from the Page Library ribbon group or through a right click action.
Selecting the Add Page ribbon item or right clicking in the flow and selecting "Add Page" will bring up the dialog below. From this dialog you can select the page type for which you would like to add an instance of. The display name and page name will be filled in automatically, but you can change these to whatever you would like. However, the page name provided must be unique otherwise the Add New Page dialog will block you from selecting OK.
If a page instance is no longer in use it can be removed from the Page Library by using the "Remove Page" ribbon item in the same Page Library ribbon group which "Add Page" can be found. A page instance can only be removed form the Page Library if all instances of that page have been removed from the flow. If all page instances have not been removed from the flow the following error will occur when attempting to remove a page from the library:
Simply use the "Remove Item" ribbon item in the Flow Designer ribbon group or "Remove Item" right click action in order to remove each of the page instance from each of the stages in the flow.
Once the page item has been successfully removed from all stages in the flow and the page instance shows 0 usage you can now select "Remove Page" in order to successfully remove the page instance from the Page Library.
I hope that this blog has helped you understand the UDI Designer's Page Library better. Please visit again as I will be discussing additional functionality of the UDI Designer, Wizard, and other features that UDI provides.
In today’s post I would like to talk a bit about the Designer Flow. Two key concepts we had when creating the UDI designer were that pages should be configured once and used in multiple locations and visually represented in the logical order in which they will be displayed. The designer flow helps accomplish these goals by first showing you thumbnails of the actual wizard pages in the order in which the pages will be displayed when running a stage and by allowing you to drag pages from the page library and drop the page in the appropriate location in the flow.
In addition to adding pages the flow also allows you to remove a page from a stage and reorder pages in a stage. Additionally you can double click on a page in the flow in order to configure the page. These are all concepts which I will talk through in the video I have put together below.
The wizard has been rewritten as well as the designer to give it a new look and feel, make it more testable, and make it extensible. When running the wizard you will notice the available pages on the left hand side are highlighted as you navigate through the wizard. These pages and the stages that they run in are defined in the stage the wizard is running in. In this post I will talk a bit about the wizard and at a high level the new features and pages available which the wizard offers.
Stages, as I defined in a prior post about the designer, is comprised of a set of pages and resides under a scenario. All, but the Refresh scenario have multiple stages. As all scenarios and stages are in the same configuration file the wizard can now be run with the new /stage switch. The UDIWizard.wsf script, which is used to run the wizard from the UDI task sequence, automatically determines which stage to run from the configuration file based on the environment that the wizard is in. The pages for each of the stages are defined under each stage in the configuration file and are displayed in the designer. The available stages are outlined below:
NEWCOMPUTER
NEWCOMPUTER.Prestaged
REFRESH
REPLACE
REPLACE.WinPE
Note: Running stages with the wizard is case sensitive
There are several enhancements to both the existing wizard and designer pages, but in this section of this post I would like to highlight the new pages available in MDT 2012 (Beta 2 and above) and discuss briefly some of the changes to the Software page formally known as the Application page.
User device Affinity allows for a primary user to be associated to a device and is explained in more detail here. However, the wizard page allows for specifying a user account to be set as a primary user of the device being imaged. There is a bit more to setting UDA than just setting a user account from this page however so please take a look at the blog post which I just mentioned. Additionally I will cover this in more detail as it pertains to UDI in a future blog post.
The BitLocker page, which has been modeled around MDT LTI’s BitLocker page, allows for enabling BitLocker with various settings. It allows for setting various TPM settings or a startup key, whether to store a recovery key in active directory or not, and whether to wait for encryption to complete. Because the UDI page offers the ability to set a PIN and the in the box BitLocker task sequence step does not - understandably so as you may not want to make a user type in their PIN during reboots in a task sequence - we ended up using the same MDT script for setting up BitLocker as LTI does. We decided that we would leave it up to the administrator to determine if he wants to make this option available or not. Remember you can disabled any of the controls on a page from the designer so users can’t select them.
The user state page allows for selecting where to capture user state to or restore user state from. User state can be captured or restored locally, to or from a USB drive, and to or from a network location. If either the USB or Network options are selected then a user name and password must also be specified. The user name and password are used to hash the folder that the user state will be captured to, or in the event of restoring which folder to restore it from. Additionally, during a capture the password is used to encrypt the user state by using ScanState.exe with the /encrypt /key:KeyString parameters and during a restore decrypt the user state by using LoadState.exe with the /decrypt /key:KeyString parameters. For more information about ScanState and LoadState please see the TechNet pages on ScanState Syntax and LoadState Syntax.
Not all of these options are available in every scenario as logic has been built in to display the particular options based on the following:
Note: The built in logic in the wizard will trump the lock and unlock settings for radio buttons from this page. You can further lock a radio button down if it is normally enabled in a particular environment, but setting a radio button to enabled will be ignored if the built in logic determines it should be locked in a particular environment.
The progress page is pretty much the same page as the preflight page except it has a progress bar on it. The progress bar on the page is used to display the progress of the ScanState process, which is used for capturing user state. It uses scanstate’s progress log to get the percentage of the completed process. If there is a problem for any of the tasks, including running the USMT task, there is a retry button that the end user can use to run all the tasks on the page again.
Not that this page is new, but it has changed so much that I thought that it was worth mentioning a few things. First off because Configuration Manager 2012 now offers package and programs as well as Applications (using the new App Model) we decided to offer both from the software page of the wizard. To end users software items will display the same as they won’t need to know the difference between the two only that they actually installed at the end of the day. In the designer the icon which represents an item does display different between a package/program and an application as administrators may want to know the difference.
Additionally the Software Page allows you to nest groups. In the 2010 update 1 wizard there was a top most group and then just 1 layer below that group which was available. Now you can add in groups at the root level and then add in multiple groups under a root group allowing for 2 layers of applications.
The latest version of the wizard actually runs without the /preview switch outside of a task sequence. However, it is best to run the wizard in preview mode in this scenario so you won’t be blocked by things such as preflight checks which fail. You can run the wizard directly from the designer by either selecting preview from a stage or by selecting a stage and then selecting preview from the ribbon item.
There is so much more to discuss about UDI, so keep posted as I’ll keep posting.
There hasn’t been a release of UDI since MDT 2010 Update 1 and with a complete redesign of the designer and wizard you may not recognize it other than the name on the home page of the designer.Chris Adams has put together a good blog post explaining the goals that we came up with when we first sat down to decide what we were going to build for the next version of UDI. The Beta product actually ended up being very close to what our goals were. In this blog post I will explore at a high level the new features and functionality that are available with MDT 2012 Beta 2 UDI Designer and in later blog posts I will explain those and additional features in more depth.
The UDI designer has been rewritten from the ground up making a number of new features available along the way. The layout of the designer has completely changed with a more modern look and feel making use of a ribbon, drag and drop features, as well as making a number of other usability improvements over MDT 2010 Update 1 version. In this section I will layout at a high level the new features and functionality of the designer.
Before we talk about additional scenarios lets get some terminology out of the way which will make more sense when I describe the flow below as well as the wizard in later posts.
Previously UDI only really offered 2 scenarios, Bare Metal and Refresh, for deployments which were really the same flow of pages just with a few small tweaks. That is changing with MDT 2012. There are 3 scenarios available from the designer out of the box, with one or more stage(s) under each scenario. UDI now offers the Replace scenario in addition to Refresh and Bare Metal, although the Bare Metal scenario is renamed to the New Computer scenario to align with MDT’s terminology. A scenario can have multiple stages under it for example the New Computer scenario has NEWCOMPUTER and NEWCOMPUTER.Prestaged which I will talk about in more detail when I outline stages under the Wizard.
Now I mentioned that there are additional scenarios that are available out of the box, but what about custom scenarios. There is a way to do this which I will explore in future blog posts, but if you want to add additional scenarios to the existing ones this cannot be done currently through the designer. If this is functionality that you think that you would take advantage of, please either leave me a comment, provide feedback through Connect or on the MDT 2012 Beta 2 survey that should be coming out shortly.
The Page Library shows all the pages which are currently loaded in the designer. When loading a configuration file all of the available pages which are defined in the configuration file are displayed to the page library. The page library shows the page types in alphabetical order and each of the page instances under the page type. For instance you may want 2 different welcome pages for 2 different scenarios or stages in which case the Welcome page type would show in alphabetical order in the page library and then under the Welcome page type it would show the 2 different Welcome page instances. Additionally each page instance will show how many times it is used throughout the flow on the right side of each page and when you hover over a page in the library it shows a picture of the page as well as showing which stages that page is used in.
Now the administrator can see the layout of all the available scenarios that will be made available to end users during deployments in a visual flow. Administrators can also drag and drop pages from the page library to the flow. The number on that page will then be incremented and updated to show all of the stages that the page is located in from the page in the page library. Additionally a page can be rearranged by dragging and dropping it in the appropriate spot from within the stage the page is located in. I will try to put together a few videos showing this in future posts.
Scenarios can be expanded to see the stages and pages contained in each scenario. A picture of each page is displayed along with a number representing the order each page will be displayed in during runtime of a stage. Stages can be previewed to make sure that the pages contained in that stage are configured correctly by selecting the Preview option on the right side of the stage. Additionally the wizard can be displayed in preview mode by first selecting a stage and then selecting Preview in the ribbon.
I will devote a future blog post to this topic but I would like to mention that this new version of the designer can be extended by adding in additional pages into the designer. If you would like to extend the designer and wizard with additional pages this can be developed using the SDK, the documentation for which is currently in the works, but which a sample of is currently available. To get a head start please check out the SDK directory directly under the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit installation directory. The SDK contains code for a couple of simple sample pages which can be compiled for use with the designer, for configuring which locations to make available in a dropdown list, and for use with the wizard, for allowing the end user to select from among the configured locations from the dropdown on the page.
There are a number of improvements that make it easier when needing to work in conjunction with Configuration Manager and your AD environment. At a high level these include:
I will be delving in-depth into the features and functionality that I mentioned in this post as well as into others that I did not mention. In my next post I will explore at a high-level the new features and functionality that is available from the wizard so keep posted.
MDT 2012 Beta 2, including the new version of User Driven Installation(UDI), is now available for download. To participate, register for MDT 2012 Beta 2 at Microsoft Connect.
MDT released 2012 Beta 1 sometime back which included support for System Center Configuration Manger 2012 as well as improved Lite Touch user experience, and behind-the-scenes enhancements for partitioning, UEFI, and user state migration. There have been a number of improvements made in these areas for Beta 2 as well as providing DaRT support and integrating Security Compliance Manager (SCM) for applying GPO packs into the MDT task sequence.
MDT has not released a new version of User Driven Installation (UDI) since MDT 2010 Update 1, but that is changing with this Beta 2 release. Many of UDI’s components have been completely rewritten and we think that this new version will be a game changer for user driven deployments. I will explore some of the highlights in this blog post, but look for future posts to delve in depth into the new features and functionality made available with MDT 2012 UDI.
To participate, register for MDT 2012 Beta 2 at Microsoft Connect.
MDT 2012 UDI has a number of new features. At a glance these include:
I will be covering these topics and more in future blog posts.
So what are you waiting for? Follow the steps below to participate in the MDT 2012 Beta 2 program.
When enabling the hyper-v role during a task sequence, using ServerManagerCMD.exe the role requires a reboot... well actually 2 reboots. This causes problems with the task sequence. The task sequence will handle the first reboot fine but when the machine comes back up it will reboot the machine outside of the task sequence's control. There are a number of other ways that you can enable the Hyper-V role, which are outlined in this blog. As this blog points out there are several problems using a number of these solutions for setting the Hyper-V role in a task sequence.
The best way that I have found to set the Hyper-V role in a task sequence is to run Dism to install the role. During the task sequence after the image has been applied and prior to running the setup and Config Mgr step run the following:
cmd /c Dism.exe /image:%OSDTargetDrive%\ /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V /LogPath:%_SMSTSLogPath%\Hyper-V.log
After this step has finished run the following:
cmd /c Dism.exe /image:%OSDTargetDrive%\ /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V-Management-Clients /LogPath:%_SMSTSLogPath%\Hyper-Vclient.log
In the above commands %OSDTargetDrive% is the volume that the image was applied to and Dism will treat this an offline image. %_SMSTSLogPath%, where the DISM log will be written, is the same location that the task sequence log will be written to.
In my previous post I gave an overview of what Package Conversion Manger (PCM) was. In this post I will cover the various readiness states and the rules that determine each of the readiness states.
There are 5 readiness states which are shown in the slide below along with their definitions.
As unknown and converted are pretty straight forward lets concentrate on the rules associated with automatic, manual, and not applicable.
Essentially this means that they only have 1 program and it must be pointing to an MSI. The reason for this is if it contains more than one program PCM won’t be able to determine your Deployment Type preference. If you don’t have a program pointing to an MSI then PCM won’t be able to determine your detection method.
The one exception to this rule is if you have an install program and an uninstall program. Because we get the uninstall from the MSI and discard the uninstall program.
If a program has a dependency setup that dependency will need to be converted first. Once the dependency is converted we can setup the link between the dependent app and the dependency app on conversion of the dependent package.
Content must be accessible in order to get to the MSI and get the detection method.
Must have content: The setting “this package contains source files” on the package must be checked and filled out with a valid path.
There are many types of packages in Configuration Manager. We check the type of package and only analyze/convert software distribution packages.
If it doesn’t contain any programs then it is a just a package possible with source files and is not applicable.
In this section we will take a look at the Automatic, Manual, and Not Applicable states and which rules have to be true in order for a package to be in a particular readiness state.
In order for the package to be in the “Automatic” readiness state, which is the only readiness state that CTP 1 can convert, all rules (1 - 6) have to be true.
In order for a package to be in the “Manual” readiness state rules 4, 5, and 6 have to be true. Additionally if rules 1, 2, or 3 are not true, then the package will be in the “Manual” readiness state. I would like to reiterate that in the CTP 1 release PCM does not help convert “Manual” packages. We are working on adding support for the Fix and Convert feature (converting manual packages) in a future release.
If rule 4,5, or 6 are not true then the package will be in the “Not Applicable” readiness state.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Package Conversion Manager (PCM) allows for converting packages and programs into applications and deployment types in System Center Configuration Manager 2012. Packages must first be migrated from a 2007 site to a 2012 site. There is a migration feature built into Configuration Manager 2012 that allows packages to be migrated from 2007 to 2012. I will see if I can’t dig up some good information about migration and post some links in a future post. However, once you have migrated your package objects and installed PCM then it is just a matter analyzing your packages in order to determine which readiness state each are in, and then converting those packages that are in the appropriate readiness state. I will go over the different readiness states and the rules that determine those readiness states in a future blog post as this post is just a high level introduction to get you started with Package Conversion Manager.
Once PCM is installed on a machine that has the Configuration Manager 2012 console installed your console will have a few new ribbon items available from the packages node as well as right click actions. Additionally a Readiness column will be populated with Readiness information for each package and a Package Conversion Manager Overview sub node will be available which is a mockup of the information that will be made available in the future. In this version of PCM the readiness column isn’t turned on by default so you will need to make it available by right clicking on the available columns and selecting the readiness column. Once you do this you should see that all of the packages are in the “Unknown” readiness state. This simply means that they haven’ t been analyzed yet.
PCM can currently analyze a single item or in bulk by selecting all of the items that you would like to run the analysis on. Because we are integrated into the Configuration Manager console we adhere to the permissions available through RBA. So only the packages that you have permission to will you be able to analyze. Once you have selected the appropriate items to analyze you can either run the analysis by selecting the “Analyze Package” ribbon item or right clicking and selecting “Analyze Package”. Once the analysis completes your package should be in one of three states: Automatic, Manual, or Not Applicable. You can see these readiness states from the screenshot above. For CTP1 we can only help you with the Automatic packages. Don’t fear however as we are working on helping you convert over your packages that are marked as “Manual” in our CTP2 release.
Once you have analyzed your packages you can now convert those packages that are marked as Automatic. By selecting one or more package that are marked as automatic you can initiate the conversion process from the Package Conversion ribbon item or by right clicking on the selected packages and selecting Package Conversion. A dialog will be displayed confirming if you would like to continue with the conversion process. From this dialog you can either remove the packages that you don’t want to convert or you can continue forward. Once you select OK you should see a progress bar of the conversion process and then finally a summary screen. The summary screen will display if the selected packages were successfully converted or if there were any errors. Select OK and then navigate to the Applications node to confirm if those packages have been converted properly.
Pretty simple right? I will delve into more detail of Package Conversion Manager including analysis states and rules, as well as more information about the conversion process in future posts. In the meantime I hope that this helps you get started with Package Conversion Manager.