In my previous post ‘How to Limit or Restrict the Use of Bootable Media Devices for OS Deployment Using SCCM’, I showed you how to limit or restrict outdated boot media devices.  As promised, I am now going to offer a solution for stand-alone media. 

I need to start by saying that there or MANY possible ways to resolve this issue.  This is but one, but I have found it works pretty well.

As a little background, I will tell you that this solution came about because my customer at the time asked for a way to keep stand-alone media from being deployed after it was no longer current.  They wanted this to work for non-networked devices.  This meant I couldn’t point back to a file on a network share and check its contents/properties.  It all had to be contained within the media.

Once it was implemented they decided to use this same solution for networked devices as well that use stand-alone media.

I created a script called ExpiredUFDCheck.vbs.  The purpose of this script was to check the creation date of the policy.xml file on the media itself.  This file contains the task sequence information and is created when the media is generated.  My customer wanted to refresh the reference image and task sequence every quarter, so I added logic in the script that checked to see if the policy.xml file was older than 3 months old.  If it wasn’t, the task sequence would launch and run as normal.  If it was, the script would pop up a message box notifying the tech that the task sequence was expired and would then shutdown the box and not launch the task sequence.  Pretty simple, right?

 

' // ***************************************************************************
' //
' // File:      ExpiredUFDCheck.vbs
' //
' // Version:   1.0
' //
' // Purpose:   Check to see if stand-alone media is expired
' //
' // Usage:     cscript ExpiredUFDCheck.vbs
' //
' // ***************************************************************************

On Error Resume Next

' // ---------------------------------------------------------------------
' // Find the environment variable %configpath% for location of UFD
' // ---------------------------------------------------------------------

'Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Set objExecObject = objShell.Exec("%comspec% /c echo %configpath%")
'configPath1 = objExecObject.StdOut.ReadAll()
'configPath = Mid(configPath1, 1, Len(configPath1) -2)

' // -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' // Find the environment variable %TEMP% for location of tool files (e.g. shutdown.exe)
' // -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objExecObject = objShell.Exec("%comspec% /c echo %temp%")
temp = objExecObject.StdOut.ReadAll()
tempdir = Mid(temp, 1, Len(temp) -2)

' // ---------------------------
' // Find driver letter for UFD
'// ----------------------------

Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set Drives = FSO.Drives

For Each DiskDrive In Drives
  If DiskDrive.DriveType = "1" Then
      USBPath = DiskDrive.Path
  End If
 
Next
 

' // -----------------------------------------------------------------
' // Query WMI for creation date of the Policy.xml file on the UFD
' // -----------------------------------------------------------------

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

' // ----------------------------
' // Media Check - Policy.xml
' // ----------------------------

Set colFiles = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * From CIM_DataFile Where Name = '" & USBPath & "\\SMS\\Data\\Policy.xml'")

' // -----------------------------------------
' // Set the date 3 months ago from today
' // -----------------------------------------

dt3MonthsAgo = DateAdd("m", -3, Now)

' // -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' // If the Policy.xml file creation date is less than the date 3 months ago from today, it is an expired UFD.
' // -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Each objFile in colFiles
    dtCreationDate = WMIDateStringToDate(objFile.CreationDate)
  dtEndDate = DateAdd("m", 3, dtCreationDate)      
    If dtCreationDate < dt3MonthsAgo then
        Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
        Command = TEMPDIR & "\scripts\Shutdown.exe /s /t 0"
        MsgBox "This task sequence expired on " & dtEndDate, vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "Expired Task Sequence"
        Set oExec = WshShell.Exec(Command)
    Else
        WScript.Quit(1)
   
    End If
Next

' // -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' // Converting the WMI date query response to a simple date format.  (e.g. 09/21/2010)
' // -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Function WMIDateStringToDate(dtmInstallDate)
    WMIDateStringToDate = CDate(Mid(dtmInstallDate, 5, 2) & "/" & Mid(dtmInstallDate, 7, 2) & "/" & Left(dtmInstallDate, 4) & " " & Mid(dtmInstallDate, 9, 2) & ":" & Mid(dtmInstallDate, 11, 2) & ":" & Mid(dtmInstallDate, 13, 2))
End Function

 

Now comes the fun. I had to make sure the script ran on the media. We also wanted it to run before the task sequence fired.

Inside WinPE itself, there is a file on the root called TSConfig.ini (X:\TSConfig.ini).  This file is a ‘pre-execution hook’ file and determines if any extra actions are required when WinPE is launching and initializing.  I mounted the WinPE wim and copied my script file to the root.  Then inside the TSConfig.ini file I set the command to launch my script.

 

[CustomHook]

CommandLine=”cscript.exe X:\ExpiredUFDCheck.vbs”

 

 

When a machine is booted with an expired UFD, the following message box will be displayed during the WinPE initialization…

 

Hitting OK, will shut down the computer.

 

This post was contributed by Brad Tucker, a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Services, East Region, United States

Disclaimer: The information on this site is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, confers no rights, and is not supported by the authors or Microsoft Corporation. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified in the Terms of Use