Disabling Task Sequence Notification Balloons in ConfigMgr 2007

Notification balloons seem to be a frequent topic of feedback from customers. There may pop up too often, or only certain users should get them, or the timing isn’t configurable enough.

Lately we’ve had multiple customers asking for a very specific feature. The AdminUI for SCCM provides the ability to disable notification balloons for normal Software Distribution packages, but not for Task Sequences.

While there are currently no plans to modify the AdminUI to add this ability, all of the necessary logic is already present in the client code; you just have to go out of your way to enable it. If the ability to disable notification balloons for Task Sequences is something that would be beneficial in your environment then you can use the script below to automate the process.

The example below needs to be run on a site server by a user who has sufficient permissions in SCCM to modify the Task Sequences in question. Running the example with no command line arguments will provide usage instructions.

There is no guarantee or warranty associated with this example. Make sure you test any utility before using it in a production environment; and, as always, make sure that you are running frequent backups and that you test the restoration procedure on a regular basis to ensure that the backups are valid.

The script text is below but you can also download it directly here.

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Option Explicit On

If WScript.Arguments.Count < 1 Then
    WScript.Echo "Usage:"
    WScript.Echo "    DisableTSNotification.vbs -all"
    WScript.Echo "    DisableTSNotification.vbs PackageID [PackageID]..."
    WScript.Quit
End If

Dim strComputer
Dim siteCode
Dim objWMIService
Dim colItems
Dim objItem
Dim packageID
Dim itemFound
Dim numPackages
Dim numUpdated

strComputer = "."
siteCode=GetSiteCode()
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts://" & strComputer & "/root/sms/site_" & siteCode)

If StrComp(UCase(WScript.Arguments.Item(0)), "-ALL", 1) = 0 Then
    numPackages = 0
    numUpdated = 0
    Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM SMS_TaskSequencePackage", "WQL", 32)
    For Each objItem in colItems
        If (objItem.ProgramFlags AND 1024) = 0 Then
            objItem.ProgramFlags = objItem.ProgramFlags OR 1024
            objItem.Put_
            numUpdated = numUpdated + 1
            WScript.Echo "Modified package " & objItem.PackageID
        End If
        numPackages = numPackages + 1
    Next
    WScript.Echo "Updated " & numUpdated & " of " & numPackages & " packages"
Else
    For Each packageID in WScript.Arguments
        Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM SMS_TaskSequencePackage WHERE PackageID='" & packageID & "'", "WQL", 32)
        itemFound = false
        For Each objItem in colItems
            If (objItem.ProgramFlags AND 1024) = 0 Then
                objItem.ProgramFlags = objItem.ProgramFlags OR 1024
                objItem.Put_
                WScript.Echo "Modified package " & objItem.PackageID
            Else
                WScript.Echo "No need to update package " & objItem.PackageID
            End If
            itemFound = true
        Next
        If itemFound = false Then
            WScript.Echo "ERROR: Package " & packageID & " was not found on this server"
        End If
    Next
End If

Function GetSiteCode()
    Dim objSWbemLocator
    Dim objSWbemServices
    Dim ProviderLocation
    Dim Location
    Dim strSiteCode

    objSWbemLocator = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")
    objSWbemServices = objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer(".", "root\sms")
    ProviderLocation = objSWbemServices.InstancesOf("SMS_ProviderLocation")

    For Each Location In ProviderLocation
        If Location.ProviderForLocalSite = True Then
            strSiteCode = Location.SiteCode
        End If
    Next

    GetSiteCode = strSiteCode
End Function

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Trevor Duke | Escalation Engineer