Russ Rimmerman - ConfigMgr Guy

Deploying the App-V 5.0 Client Using Configuration Manager 2012 SP1

2013-04-24T03:16:00Z

Whether you’re currently an App-V 4.x shop or just starting to get your feet wet with App-V 5.0, one of the questions you may have is how best to deploy the App-V 5.0 client using Configuration Manager 2012.

If you aren’t yet on ConfigMgr 2012 SP1, you’ll need to upgrade to SP1 first (see my other blog post on the SP1 install topic here) as the App-V 5.0 client requires PowerShell 3.0, and PowerShell 3.0 will cause health-check related issues for your clients if you aren’t on SP1, so you’ll need to upgrade your 2012 clients to 2012 SP1 before deploying the WMF 3.0 update package. WMF v3 should be set as a pre-requisite within the App-V 5.0 application so that it will automatically install it if it is not already installed on a specific client.

If you’ve done some research on the App-V 5.0 pre-requisites, you’ll notice that you need to set the .NET Framework 4 (Full Package) as the first pre-requisite. If you look at your clients and notice they have “Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile” and/or “Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended”, these are not sufficient, as you must install the full package version of .NET Framework.

Creating & Prepping the App-V 5.0 Client for Deployment

Preparing the Prerequisites

.NET Framework 4.0 (Full) - If you don’t already have a package or application for .NET Framework 4 Full, download it here, and create a script installer application for it, adding /q /norestart switches for the install command-line, and /uninstall for the uninstall.

If you’re using an application (versus a package) to deploy it, you can have it detect installation by looking at the registry key HKLM/Software/Microsoft/NET Framework Setup/NDP/v4/Full and the registry value “Install” with a Data Type “Integer”.

There are many ways you could detect .NET Framework Full being installed, but this is one viable option.

Windows Management Framework 3.0 – PowerShell 3.0 which is a component of Windows Management Framework (WMF) 3.0 is also a required pre-requisite on Windows 7 SP1 and 2008 SP2/R2 SP1 clients. WMF 3.0 is downloadable from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34595. Create a new package for WMF 3.0 using the Installation command line: c:\windows\system32\wusa.exe “Windows6.1-KB2506143-x64.msu” /quiet /norestart and the Uninstall command-line: c:\windows\system32\wusa.exe /uninstall “Windows6.1-KB2506143-x64.msu”.

For the Detection Method, select “Use a custom script to detect the presence of this deployment type:”

Click “Edit…” and paste this small PowerShell script I put together into the window:

$osresult = $null
$os = (Get-WmiObject Win32_OperatingSystem).Name
if ($os -like "*Windows 8*") {$osresult = "True"}
if ($os -like "*Server 2012*") {$osresult = "True"}
$hfchk = Get-WmiObject -Query "select HotFixID from Win32_QuickFixEngineering where HotFixID like 'KB2506143'" | foreach-object{Write-Host $_.HotfixID}
$osresult

What the PowerShell script does is first checks the currently running OS Name in WMI by querying the WMI class Win32_OperatingSystem to see if it’s Windows 8 or Server 2012. If it is, it won’t find KB2506143 since it’s not applicable (nor required), so it sets the variable $osresult to equal “True” and will echo “True” at the end of the script so the result of the detection type will be a success. Note: I could’ve set $osresult to equal “Foobar” here and the end result will be the same - any value echoed by the script which also completes with an exit code of 0 is considered a successful application detection. If the OS is not Windows 8 or Server 2012, it will instead have to pass the HotFixID query check which looks for a hotfix within the Win32_QuickFixEngineering WMI class containing a HotFixID value containing “KB2506143”. If $osresult ends up being NULL AND KB2506143 is NOT found, nothing will be written to STDOUT, so the requirement check will not pass, and KB2506143 will therefore be installed. For more information on how to use a script to determine the presence of a deployment type, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg682174.aspx.

Next, go to the Requirements tab of the WMF 3.0 x64 application, and Add a Category: Device, with the Condition: Operating System, and an Operator: One of and select Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, Windows 2008 SP2 64-bit, and Windows 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit as these are the only supported OSes WMF 3.0 x64 will successfully install and are applicable on.

If you need to also deploy the 32-bit WMF 3.0, be sure to add another deployment type to call the 32-bit version of the MSU, and set it for 32-bit requirements of the 32-bit Win7 SP1 and 2008 SP2/R2 SP1 OSes. The same PowerShell script should work just fine to check for the existence of the WMF 3.0 hotfix on these.

Finally! Creating the App-V Client Application

Now, you’ll need to create a new Manually specified application using the "Script Installer” deployment type in order to deploy the App-V client. If you’re thinking of piecing the installation out into individual MSIs, I’d recommend reconsidering that plan and following the KISS principle by using the provided appv_client_setup.exe within the App-V clients directory on the MDOP 2012/2013 ISO. The reason for this, is that this wrapper install will take care of most of the pre-requisites, namely the very version specific C++ installs required. It will also automatically detect whether you’re installing on a 32 or 64-bit OS and install the matching architecture version of the App-V client. Save yourself some headaches and don’t over-complicate things by importing the App-V client MSIs directly. DO, however, use the MSIs to create the detection method within the deployment type of your application. The 32-bit and 64-bit MSIs have different product codes, so if you have both 32 and 64-bit OSes in your environment, you have a little extra work to do.

Language Packs - If you install using the .exe, the installer will also automatically install any language packs which match the language of the OS running on the client. If you want to deploy any additional language packs, you can deploy the appv_client_LP_xxxx_x86.msi or appv_client_LP_xxxx_x64.msi for each language to each client as needed.

Creating the deployments - You can create two deployment types, one for each processor architecture, and add the MSI Product Code clause for each individually. The primary advantage to doing it this way, is you also get the benefit of importing the MSI product code for windows installer source management in the event the installation ever needs updated or repaired on your clients.

If you decide you don’t need this benefit, you could do a single deployment type with no x86 & x64 requirement separation, and then you can combine the detection method into an OR’ed clause within your detection method as follows:

I personally recommend breaking them out into two deployment types, one for each OS architecture if you do have to support both x86 and x64 clients. The windows source management is a nice feature to leverage, so it’s worth the small effort. Assuming you take my advice and create separate x86 vs. x64 deployment types for your clients, your programs screen should appear something like this for the x64 type:

As you can see, I’ve imported the x64 product code into the Windows Source management blank by browsing to the appv_client_msi_x64 for self-healing sake.

Your Requirements tab should look like the snip below if you’re supporting XP, Windows 7, and 8:

For dependencies, just add the .NET Framework 4.0 (Full) and WMF 3.0 applications you created above, and they will install if they aren’t already installed on your clients when you deploy the App-V client.

When you’re all done, open the App-V Client and click “View Relationships” and it should look something like this (assuming you had to follow both the 32 and 64-bit paths).

Now you can successfully deploy the App-V client to your clients and verify the prerequisites and App-V 5.0 client installs successfully.

In an upcoming blog post, I’ll cover how to sequence the Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 Admin Console using App-V 5.0. Stay tuned!

Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 All-Inclusive SQL Database Views Listing

2013-04-06T03:48:03Z

Happy MMS 2013 everyone! Only 2 days, 12 hours, and 20 minutes to go according to the MMS 2013 official countdown clock. I’m looking forward to seeing all the old faces and meeting some new ones. I’ll be lab proctoring in the HOL B labs Tuesday from 8:30-11:30, and HOL A labs Wednesday and Thursday from 8:30-11:30. If you’re stopping by, I really like my coffee with a couple or three Splendas (I really don’t mind putting the Splenda in myself!!!) If it’s before 9am, don’t be too alarmed if I’m talking to you with my eyes shut while laying under the tables.

So the following question came up today on MyITForum’s amazingly helpful MSSMS e-mail list (http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/services/email-lists/) which I highly recommend every SCCM admin subscribes to:

Q: Microsoft used to post the SQL views for ConfigMgr 2007, Does anyone know where I can find the SQL views for ConfigMgr 2012?

A: So I ran the following query against my CM_xxx database:

Select distinct table_name,COLUMN_NAME From Information_Schema.columns
where table_name LIKE ('v%')
Order by table_name

I saved the results out to a .RPT file, imported it into Excel, Inserted a PivotTable, and viola, a list of all SQL views and their associated columns for Configuration Manager 2012.

Download link for the spreadsheet : http://sdrv.ms/16zxy8I

Anyone feel like typing in a description for each?

WinPE 4.0 boot images not working with CPU's that do not support NX/PAE/SSE2

2013-03-04T04:39:00Z

Now that SP1 is out for ConfigMgr 2012, some folks have reported issues after upgrading to ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 due to the fact that it automatically upgrades your WinPE 3.1 (which leverages Windows 7 as the core OS) to WinPE 4.0 which leverages Windows 8 as the core OS. The reason for this is many processors do not support the three features which Windows 8 requires a processor to support – namely NX, PAE, and SSE2.

On MSDN, we have a document which outlines the support required for Windows 8 here.

This will help you understand the requirements, but does not help if you need to determine if your clients will have an issue when you attempt to utilize OSD after upgrading to SP1 to image your PCs with any OS.

Fear not, for I have created a PowerShell script which leverages the SysInternals tool named “Coreinfo” which is downloadable from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722.aspx. A huge thanks goes out to PFE Norman Drews for his assistance each time I got stuck in my adventures in PowerShelling!!

Here are the steps to implement my “Pre-Flight” check for reporting on the WinPE 4.0 compatibility in your entire environment.

*NOTE* As a pre-requisite you will need to install WMF 2.0 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968929) on your Windows XP SP3 clients so they will know how to execute PowerShell scripts.

1. Download Coreinfo.exe from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722.aspx and my Coreinfo.ps1 script from http://sdrv.ms/YcNNqc. Drop both of these files into your package source directory for your new application.

2. Create a new ConfigMgr 2012 package using the source directory of the coreinfo.exe and coreinfo.ps1. The command line will be “powershell.exe –ExecutionPolicy bypass –File .\coreinfo.ps1”. You will most likely want to create a package for it versus an application since we aren’t actually installing an application. If you prefer to use an application, you could use the Coreinfo.exe file for the detection method.

3. Place the downloaded Coreinfo.exe in the package source directory.

4. Create a deployment for your new package to run for whether or not a user is logged in.

When the script executes on the clients, the script will create a new WMI class called “Win_8_Compat” and along with three properties – NX, PAE, and SSE2 which will equal “0” if the feature is not supported by the processor, and a “1” if the specific feature is supported. If all three features are a “1” for a client, you should be able to use WinPE 4 in your OS deployment task sequence on the specific client. If any features are a “0”, you should determine if the PC even supports Windows 8, and if so, there is more than likely a BIOS firmware upgrade available from the PC manufacturer for it to enable Windows 8 support.

Note: Run the script once on the client you are running the ConfigMgr admin console on in order for the new WMI class to show up as an available class. It will be named “Win_8_Compat” in the next step.

5. Add a new hardware inventory class in your client settings by going to Client Settings->Hardware Inventory

6. Click Set Classes->Add->Connect->Connect

7. The properties are stored in root\cimv2. Enable the three new properties in the new inventory class which will be named “Win_8_Compat”. Select it and click “OK”.

8. Expand “Win_8_Compat” and the three new properties to add are NX, PAE, and SSE2

Add this new class to your hardware inventory classes and now you can build yourself a report to proactively determine if your clients are going to have issues with Windows PE 4.0.

For example:

SELECT
v_GS_SYSTEM.Name0
,v_GS_Computer_System.Manufacturer0
,v_GS_Computer_System.Model0
,v_GS_PC_BIOS.Description0
,v_GS_Win_8_Compat.NX0
,v_GS_Win_8_Compat.PAE0
,v_GS_Win_8_Compat.SSE20
FROM
v_GS_SYSTEM
INNER JOIN v_GS_Win_8_Compat
    ON v_GS_SYSTEM.ResourceID = v_GS_Win_8_Compat.ResourceID
INNER JOIN v_GS_Computer_System
    ON v_GS_SYSTEM.ResourceID = v_GS_Computer_System.ResourceID
INNER JOIN v_GS_PC_BIOS
    ON v_GS_SYSTEM.ResourceID = v_GS_PC_BIOS.ResourceID
WHERE
v_GS_Win_8_Compat.NX0 != N'1'
OR v_GS_Win_8_Compat.PAE0 != N'1'
OR v_GS_Win_8_Compat.SSE20 != N'1'

Build a new report in SQL Report Builder and you get something like this:

Now, you’re probably wondering what you can do about the clients which are not supported by WinPE4. The first thing to look at is, does this specific model support running Windows 8? If so, check with your specific hardware vendor for a BIOS update to bring it up to current, and it will likely pass the check after doing so.

If it’s just far too old of hardware to support Windows 8 / Windows PE 4, another option is to replace the PC with a PC that does.

If none of these options are not ideal for your scenario, there is one workaround which you can use to buy you some time until you CAN replace these older PCs. It requires using USB/CD bootable media but should work for the one-off machines which aren’t supported by WinPE 4. It’s also not an officially supported workaround, but could be used as a last resort if you’re finding yourself having to support the dinosaurs for a bit longer.

1. Build yourself a temporary ConfigMgr 2012 RTM version server. For this example, I will give my RTM install a site code of “ABC”. If you have not yet upgraded to SP1, you can skip this step.
2. Copy the boot.ABC0001.wim file from your ConfigMgr 2012 RTM %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Configuration Manager\OSD\boot\i386 to a safe place. If you haven’t yet upgraded to SP1, you will not be able to proceed with step 3 until you do.
3. Create a Task Sequence Bootable USB Media (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb632725.aspx) using your ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 installation.
4. Copy the WinPE 4 boot.wim from newly created USB (x:\sources\boot.wim) and mount it using DISM.exe (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744382(v=WS.10).aspx).
5. Copy the x:\sms\bin\i386 directory from the WinPE 4 mounted wim to a safe place for use in the next step.
6. Mount the WinPE 3.x boot.ABC0001.wim copied off during step 2, and copy the i386 directory from step 5 into the same location within the WinPE 3.x mounted wim, overwriting the existing files.
7. /Unmount-Wim and /Commit-Wim the boot.ABC0001.wim file.
8. Rename the boot.ABC0001.wim file to boot.wim and copy it to the USB key replacing the WinPE 4.0 boot.wim.

You should be able to use this USB key to boot your older hardware and connect to your ConfigMgr SP1 server for OSD purposes. You will need to make sure that the boot.wim you use to create your boot media is the same boot.wim that is associated with the task sequence you deploy to these old dinosaurs to prevent them from downloading the fully SP1 based WinPE 4 boot.wim which they cannot successfully boot from. Check out this thread http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmanagerosd/thread/8faa337b-a648-49b4-8431-49c022b96e04/ for more tweaks related to this workaround.

Enjoy!

Technical Documentation for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

2013-02-22T03:23:36Z

Download the Feb 2013 updated help files from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29901

Read all about it from The ConfigMgr Team Blog http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2013/02/15/announcement-february-2013-downloadable-documentation-for-configuration-manager.aspx

Configuration Manager 2012 RTM to SP1 Upgrade Overview

2012-12-21T04:33:07Z

With the recent release of Configuration Manager 2012 SP1, I thought I’d blog my installation experience. SP1 for ConfigMgr 2012 brings many new and exciting features, and includes additional bug fixes, as well as all the fixes released in both cumulative update 1 and 2.

One of the most significant changes is support for Windows 8. Configuration Manager SP1 supports Windows 8 in the following ways:

You can install the Configuration Manager client on Windows 8 computers and deploy Windows 8 to new computers or to upgrade previous client operating versions. Configuration Manager also supports Windows To Go.
Configuration Manager supports Windows 8 features, such as metered Internet connections and Always On Always Connected.
You can configure user data and profiles configuration items for folder redirection, offline files, and roaming profiles.
You can configure new deployment types for Windows 8 applications, which support standalone applications (.appx files) and links to the Windows Store.

Other significant changes include the following:

Support for Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 SP1.
Clients are now supported on Mac computers, and on Linux and UNIX servers.
Windows PowerShell cmdlets are available to automate Configuration Manager operations by using Windows PowerShell scripts (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj849987.aspx)
More flexible hierarchy management with support to expand a stand-alone primary site into a hierarchy that includes a new central administration site, and the migration of a Configuration Manager SP1 hierarchy to another Configuration Manager SP1 hierarchy.
Support for multiple software update points for a site to provide automatic redundancy for clients in the same way as you can configure multiple management points.
Client notification to initiate some client operations from the Configuration Manager console, which include downloading computer policy and initiating a malware scan to be performed as soon as possible, instead of during the normal client policy polling interval.
Support for virtual environments that allow multiple virtual applications to share file system and registry information instead of running in an isolated space.
Email alert subscriptions are now supported for all features, not just Endpoint Protection.

For a full explanation of these features, please visit the “What’s New in Configuration Manager SP1” TechNet +article at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj591552. Another very good read before proceeding is “Planning to Upgrade System Center 2012 Configuration Manager” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822981.aspx as well as “Considerations for Upgrading to Configuration Manager SP1” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822981.aspx#BKMK_ConsiderationsforSP1Upgrade, and last but certainly not least, be sure to review the Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 Checklist at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822981.aspx#BKMK_UpgradeSP1Checklist.

Additionally, for a list of all hotfixes included in SP1, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2801420

First, a brief FAQ:

Q: Where can I download the SP1 installation?

A: SP1 must be downloaded from Microsoft Volume Licensing Center https://licensing.microsoft.com. It is a fully slipstreamed ConfigMgr 2012 install including SP1. This is the only form in which it is downloadable – there is not a separate SP1 download available by itself.

Q: Is SQL 2012 SP1 supported?

A: Yes, SQL 2012 SP1 is supported

Q: Will my client push automatically deploy and use the SP1 client going forward?

A: Clients will only begin automatically upgrading only if you enable the automatic client upgrade feature in the site hierarchy settings (this is not enabled by default). If you do enable this, you can set a random number of days that all clients should be upgraded in. Clients will randomly select a date within the range and, of course, get the upgrade. Be sure to remember this is on in the event another SP or other update is released in the future, as your clients will do the same thing (upgrade) automatically then as well. The automatic client upgrade isn’t intended for doing mass client upgrades. It’s intended to be more of a straggler upgrade feature for those you didn’t upgrade during your more-controlled client push method.

The client package on your distribution points will automagically be upgraded with the SP1 version of the client. Therefore when you use client push or other client installation methods, all clients going forward will automatically install the SP1 version of the client.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (added 1/29/2013)

If you’ve downloaded the SP1 bits prior to January 28, 2013, I recommend re-downloading them prior to installation as they have been updated to include the KB2801987 hotfix as well as to update some corrupted binaries in the Linux & iOS client installations.

Preparation:

Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2801416 for a high level overview of the SP1 installation, and http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj739872.aspx for the SP1 release notes. You will need to also install USMT 5.0, Windows Deployment Tools, and the Windows Pre-installation (WinPE) Environment which are available in the Windows 8 ADK which is downloadable from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30652. These pre-requisites are mandatory and you cannot install ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 without them. NOTE: You should also uninstall WAIK if it is installed.

If you have multiple System Center products, there is a recommended order to install the SP1 in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj628203.aspx.

You will also need to ensure hotfix KB2734608 is installed on your WSUS 3.0 SP2 SUP (Note: Windows Server 2012 includes WSUS 4.0 so this hotfix is not required). If you have your SUP on a remote server, you’ll need to install the hotfix on the site server as well since it has the WSUS admin console installed. This will only present a warning if it’s not installed (it actually states KB2720211, but KB2734608 includes KB2720211), and will allow you to continue the SP1 installation without the hotfix. However, if you upgrade to SP1 without this WSUS hotfix, your SUP will not function properly after the upgrade! Therefore it is highly recommended you install the WSUS hotfix(es) before continuing.

Additionally, if you have your 2012 hierarchy connected to your 2007 hierarchy for migration purposes, you will temporarily need to click the “Stop Gathering Data” button in the Migration folder in order to install SP1. When the upgrade is completed, in order to be able to restart the data gathering, you will need to go back into the Source Hierarchy section of the Migration folder, select the hierarchy, and click “Configure”. Ensure the credentials are properly configured, click OK and the data gathering process will resume.

If you have a CAS and one or multiple Primary Sites, you must start the SP1 installation at the CAS level first and work your way down the hierarchy. CAS—>Primaries—>Secondaries. If you are lucky enough to have significantly less than 100,000 clients or lack an excessive amount of internal politics, you will only need to install in the order of Primaries—>Secondaries.

GOTCHAS

Gotcha 1 – Built-in collections

When you upgrade to ConfigMgr SP1, the built-in collections are overwritten in the site database. If you have customized a built-in collection, create a copy of that collection before you upgrade. More details in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2739984.

Gotcha 2 – Client push issues after installing SP1

NOTE: You should not have this issue if you’ve downloaded the 2012 SP1 BITS after January 28, 2013.

After installing SP1, ConfigMgr client installations may fail to install due to an Authenticode issue such as the following lines in ccmsetup.log

Couldn't verify 'C:\Windows\ccmsetup\MicrosoftPolicyPlatformSetup.msi' authenticode signature. Return code 0x800b0101
InstallFromManifest failed 0x80004005
CcmSetup failed with error code 0x80004005

To resolve this issue, follow one of the two resolutions at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2801987.

Gotcha 3 – Administrative Console backwards compatibility

When you use a Configuration Manager console that is of a lower service pack version than the site you connect to, the console cannot display or create some objects and information that are available in the new service pack version. When you use a Configuration Manager console that is of a higher service pack version than the site you connect to, the connection is blocked. Hint: If you have many administrators connecting to your hierarchy, the ConfigMgr 2012 admin console is a prime candidate for virtualization using App-V v5 – which by the way has no more Q: drive!!!

Gotcha 4 – Dynamic SQL Ports

Using dynamic ports in SQL? You must change them back to static in order to successfully install SP1 on your SQL instance (this includes secondary sites). Configuration Manager does not support dynamic ports. Because SQL Server named instances by default use dynamic ports for connections to the database engine, when you use a named instance, you must manually configure the static port that you want to use for intrasite communication. For more information refer to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg682077.aspx#BKMK_SupConfigSQLDBconfig, and if you aren’t sure how to configure SQL to listen on a specific TCP/IP port, visit http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ms177440.aspx.

Gotcha 5 – Upgrading Secondary sites

Have Secondary sites to upgrade? SQL Server cumulative updates must be manually installed on secondary sites that use SQL Express. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2688247 for more information. You must update to SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU6 or SP2.

Gotcha 6 – While we’re on the subject of having secondary sites, consider the following scenario:

You configure a Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1 (SP1) primary site and a System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 secondary site.
You create a package on the primary site.
You distribute the package to the distribution point of the secondary site.
You validate the package on the distribution point of the secondary site after the content status reads Success.
You verify that the content status reads Success after the validation is completed.
You right-click the package and then select Update distribution point.

In this scenario, the content status is stuck in In progress - Waiting for Content status instead of Success status. Install http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2828900 to resolve this specific issue.

Gotcha 7 – Got McAfee or Trend?

Be sure to visit https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB76867&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1357907921573 and http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenterpfe/archive/2013/01/11/updated-system-center-2012-configuration-manager-antivirus-exclusions-with-more-details.aspx or prepare to suffer from corrupted boot images. There are some additional A/V exclusions that are important to add to insure this doesn’t happen.

Gotcha 8 – Using a service account for your “Site System Installation Account” (rather than the site server’s computer account)? There is a known issue if you are using an AD account. The evidence that you are experiencing this issue is your console will have errors on the DP Monitoring stating “Distribution Manager failed to find or create the defined share or volume on distribution…” Your distmgr.log will say things like “Failed to set share security on share \\server\SMSSIG$. Error = 5” (which is access denied and “Failed to set access security on share SMSSIG$ on server xxx”.

To resolve this issue, change your site server settings back to use the site server’s computer account to install the site system, and your DP will successfully install. Also, be sure to restart the SMS_Executive service after changing this setting.

Gotcha 9 – OS Deployments on older hardware may become an issue due to the fact that SP1 changes from utilizing WAIK (WinPE v3.x) to using ADK (WinPE v4.0 – Win8/Server 2012). If a BIOS update does not resolve it, make sure your PC is Windows 8 compatible or the new WinPE 4 in the ADK will not boot properly. Freezing or blue screens with errors such as “HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED”, and “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” along with a 0x0000005D are the more common symptoms of this. You have a better chance of no issues if your processor supports the NX (no-execution) bit, PAE, and SSE2. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh975398.aspx for more information on this.

More importantly, see my blog posting on how to collect NX, PAE, and SSE2 supportability information from your [PowerShell execution capable] clients at http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgr_geek_speak/archive/2013/03/03/winpe-4-0-boot-images-not-working-with-cpu-s-that-do-not-support-nx-pae-sse2.aspx.

To manually check a client, use Coreinfo 3.2 from Windows Sysinternals @ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722.aspx. If it supports NX, PAE, and SSE2, it’s more than likely going to work with WinPE 4.0.

Configurations affected by an upgrade: When a site upgrades to Configuration Manager SP1, some configurations and settings do not persist after the upgrade or are set to a new default configuration. The following table includes configurations and settings that do not persist or that change, and provides details to help you plan for them during a site upgrade.

Software Center

When you upgrade to Configuration Manager SP1, the following Software Center items will be reset to their default values:

Work information is reset to business hours from 5.00am to 10.00pm Monday to Friday.
The value for Computer maintenance is set to Suspend Software Center activities when my computer is in presentation mode.
The value for Remote control is set to the value configured by the client settings assigned to the computer.

Software update summarization schedules

When you upgrade to Configuration Manager SP1, custom summarization schedules for software updates or software update groups are reset to the default value of 1 hour. After the upgrade completes, reset custom summarization values to the desired frequency.

Now, on to the install!

First, burn, mount, or extract the ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 ISO to your desired path. Double click on “splash.hta” in the root directory to begin the install.

Wait! Did you back up your SQL database, and test the database upgrade process on a copy of the most recent site database backup? If not, immediately “abend” and re-read the TechNet links above. If you haven’t, proceed at your own risk!

You will be prompted with the usual options at this point for server readiness assessments, release notes, etc. Notice the new entry under Tools and Standalone Components titled “Download clients for additional operating systems”. This is here if you need to install clients for any non-Windows OS machines you might have.

Click the blue “Install” to begin…

You’ll be presented with the Before You Begin dialog, and the very first important item listed here is to make sure you verify you have a supported SQL Server installation available for Configuration Manager. Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 supports SQL 2012, and as of 2/11/2013, it also officially supports SQL 2012 with SP1 as well.

The Configuration Manager Setup prerequisite check rules verify that software and settings required for setup are installed. In some cases, the required software itself might require additional software updates not verified by Configuration Manager Setup. Before you start the Setup process, make sure that the operating system running on the computer, and additional installed software that Configuration Manager Setup relies on, have been updated with all relevant software updates.

After reading the remaining steps, click “Next”.

The “Getting Started” dialog appears, and we will select “Upgrade the Configuration Manager site” and click “Next”.

Insert your valid license key (the same key you used to install the RTM version if this is not a fresh install), and click “Next”

Accept the license terms (after fully reading them of course), and click “Next”

Accept the license terms for SQL 2012 Express, Native Client, and Silverlight 5. Yes, secondary site installations will now automatically install SQL 2012 Express rather than SQL 2008 Express.

Download the prerequisites. Be sure to save them to a UNC path so can re-use them and don’t have to re-download them for any other primary site servers you need to upgrade.

After downloading the prerequisites, you’re then prompted for both the Server Language and Client Language selection.

Click ‘Next’ to confirm that you’re doing an upgrade, and you’ll get to the pre-requisite checker.

At this point, if you’ve failed any of the pre-requisite checks, you can correct them (or verify they are applicable) and re-run the pre-requisite checker again if needed.

Click here for a Technical Reference of the Pre-requisite checks.

When the prerequisite check runs, it logs its results in the ConfigMgrPrereq.log file on the system drive of computer. The log file can contain additional information that does not display in user interface.

Once finished, you can click “View Log” to see the installation process steps and troubleshoot any issues that may have occurred.

ALSO, check your RCMCTRL.LOG to verify there are no replication issues. If you launch the ConfigMgr SP1 console immediately after the upgrade, you may find the console is in Read-Only mode. Give replication and the site reset initiated by SP1 some time to finish and try again. If you still have replication issues, check this blog post out on DRS replication first http://blogs.technet.com/b/sudheesn/archive/2012/10/21/drs-initialization-in-configuration-manager-2012.aspx and if this fails, a Premier support case may be needed.

NOTE: There is a known issue with the pre-SP1 version of ConfigMgr 2012 which may cause this window to never get to this point.

If you think this may have occurred, go to your ConfigMgr installation directory, into the Logs sub-directory, and look for a sub-directory called “CrashDumps”. If you see this directory, open it and look for a sub-directory named “YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_smsexec”. If the YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS matches today’s date, the SMS_Executive service is probably no longer running. Start the SMS_Executive service back up, and the upgrade process will then be able to finish (give it a few more minutes to finish the site reset). The good news is, this issue is resolved by SP1 so this should be the last time you’ll experience it. The bad news is the SP1 upgrade process itself seems to be pretty successful at causing the issue when it stops the SMS_Executive service during the upgrade process. Just start the SMS_Exec back up and the upgrade will then be able to finish.

Once you’re able to open the 2012 admin console without it warning you that it is in read-only mode / maintenance mode, the upgrade of the specific site is finished.

What to do now? Upgrade any remotely installed admin consoles to SP1 so they are able to connect to your new SP1 site.

Did you know? You can now use CCMSETUP.exe switches and CLIENT.MSI switches in the Client Push settings. You can also use the new /skipprereq:bits switch to skip the BITS pre-requisite check on your old 2003 SP2 servers with BITS 2.0, so you can actually use ConfigMgr to deploy the BITS 2.5 install to them! Cool!

Also be sure to check out all the new application types! New to the application types are Application Packages for iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Windows 8, App-V v5, and Windows Phone. Very nice selection indeed!

Another notable change is the CCMSetup directory now has it’s own \logs subdirectory for the ConfigMgr client install/uninstall logs. The full default path to the client installation logs is now C:\Windows\ccmsetup\logs\.

Be sure to also install the latest from CM2012 Toolkit for SP1 from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36213

Update 03/21/2013 – Cumulative 1 for 2012 SP1 is now out – see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817245/en-us for more information.

After applying CU1, I also recommend applying the following post SP1 CU1 hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2828900 which resolves an issue with packages getting stuck in “In progress – Waiting for Content” after updating a package to a distribution point.

Enjoy!

List of Public Microsoft Support Knowledge Base (KB) Articles for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr 2012)

2012-10-01T17:32:52Z

Keep updated with the latest hotfixes! This is a great reference to check on first when troubleshooting any issue.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/9539.list-of-public-microsoft-support-knowledge-base-kb-articles-for-system-center-2012-configuration-manager-configmgr-2012.aspx?PageIndex=3

Non-HTTPS enabled SSRS site does not work on a fresh Configuration Manager 2012 install

2012-07-08T21:41:50Z

After adding the Reporting Services role to my ConfigMgr 2012 lab, I was immediately receiving errors such as “The underlying connection was denied: An unexpected error occurred on a send.” when I was trying to create or view reports in SSRS.

After bringing up the Reporting Services Configuration Manager app within SQL 2008 R2, if I tested the Web Service URL for the report server, I was getting the standard error in IE “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” and if I tested the Report Manager URL, I was seeing the same error I get within the CM2012 admin console.

Looking at my component status messages for the SMS_SRS_REPORTING_POINT component, I was also receiving many Message ID 7403s - “The report server service is not running on Reporting Service Point Server “CM2012.russlab.com”; start the service to enable reporting”. I verified the reporting service was running.

From my research, there are some methods in the reporting services webservices API that are inherently secure methods and if SSL is configured on a report server instance these methods cannot be invoked via http and require https connections. Internally, since we leverage some of these APIs, we fail to perform some actions.

Unfortunately there is no easy workaround for this other than to not use SSL enabled report server instances. However there is a configuration setting that can be tweaked to get around this problem but it is NOT recommended to tweak this setting if the report server instance is hosting other reports (not specific to Configuration Manager).

To resolve this issue, I had to open the file rsreportserver.config in notepad which is where the SSRS configuration is stored. The file is located in \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer by default for SQL 2008 R2.

I modified the line that begins with <Add key=”SecureConnectionLevel” Value=”3”/> to following:

<Add key=”SecureConnectionLevel” Value=”0”/>

I restarted the SQL Reporting Services service for the MSSQLSERVER instance and all is functioning well with SSRS on my Configuration Manager 2012 lab.

ConfigMgr 2012 Software Catalog error

2012-06-27T18:03:30Z

While working on my ConfigMgr 2012 lab, I was trying to load the Application Catalog through the Internet Explorer browser (http://<servername>/CMApplicationCatalog) and I ran into the following error:

“Cannot connect to the application server.”

It continued to explain that The website cannot communicate with the server. This may be a temporary problem. Click the Retry action to submit your request again. If this problem continues, try again later, or view the “More Information” section to see details about the problem.

Further investigation revealed that this is due to the WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) is not activated. An additional error: “Installation Failed: Error Code: 123” in SMSAWEBSVCSetup.log was discovered.

This then led me to find out more on this WCF service. WCF is a component of .NET Framework. That immediately took me to check on the Server Manager console, under Features, under .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features. Simply select “WCF Activation” to install both the HTTP and Non-HTTP WCF Activation features. This prerequisite is mentioned at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg682077.aspx#BKMK_SupConfigSystemReqs under the sub-section titled “Prerequisites for Site System Roles”. Click “Add Required Services” when prompted. Wait a few moments for ConfigMgr 2012 to attempt another install of the Software Catalog component, and then try again, or if you’re impatient like I am, remove and re-add the role.

Next I was running into a “Server Error in /CMApplicationCatalog Application”.

Reviewing the ServicePortalWebsite.log in SMS_CCM\CMApplicationCatalog\Logs I discovered the following 404 error on the Microsoft.ConfigurationManager.SoftwareCatalog.Website.ApplicationViewService.GetApplicationValuesForProperty. It was receiving an exception of “The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.”

To fix this you need to enable/activate .NET 4.0. On a 64-bit computer that runs the .NET Framework version 4.0.30319, run the following command:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe –i –enable

This resolved both issues and all is now working well.

If you’re having this issue on Windows Server 2012, make sure you enable both the .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.5 features (see iis-80-using-aspnet-35-and-aspnet-45)

Hope this is helpful to someone!