Introduction - During my last blog post I detailed some of the internal components of the System Center 2012 Application Request and Approval system. Included was a look into the views created in the CM Database, WMI specific data and methods, and...

Welcome to another System Center PFE blog post. In this publication I will continue to highlight how the System Center Suite of products can help manage and automate complex processes. If you’ve read my first post in this series, you will recall...

Introduction - Up until this point each scenario in this series of articles has detailed the management of ‘well connected’ clients. In other words changes have been introduced into existing infrastructure in order to facilitate untrusted...

Here we are, week two of the New Year, and the goodies just keep coming. In case you missed it the Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 Toolkit has been released and with it brings a whole batch of goodness. Some of the tools included are the usual suspects...

Intro - In the previous ‘simple’ example the assumption was that a very small group of known clients would be managed. Because of this, relying on basic ‘manual’ client installation and location lookup mechanisms (manually specified...

Admittedly I do not use custom console extensions very often, however I know that these right click tools are quite popular; from time to time I will encounter a customer situation in which creating a custom console extension makes sense. With System...

Yesterday while enjoying a lazy afternoon read through the Configuration Manager 2012 TechNet documentation, I came across this gem which was at the time news to me - Client push installation starts and tracks the installation of the client by using...

I have updated this series of Runbooks to support System Center 2012. A downloadable copy of the exported Runbooks and a blog posting detailing the changes can be found and these links. Blog - http://blogs.technet.com/b/neilp/archive/2012/07/04/updating...

In the first portion of this multi-blog look at software metering, I discussed how to create a software metering rule, observe on the client both the storage and processing of said rule, and finally discussed the server side summarization and how to manually...

Welcome back to ‘the blog’ and this series on Software Metering and automating the removal of unused software with 2012 Configuration Manager (and Orchestrator). If you have been keeping score, this is the third installment in this series...

Whoo - long time no blog. I am still around and kicking, just been occupied with a new baby ( New-CMFreak ), a new home, and wrapping up presentations for MMS. My hope is to kick this blog back into gear over the next month. Stay tuned for what I hope...

Introduction - Welcome to the last in this series of four articles examining cross forest support in 2012 Configuration Manager. In the previous three postings I have examined configuration options for client management across a non-trusted forest...

Welcome to 2013 – It’s a new year and an exciting time here at neilp central. I have several larger Configuration Manager and Orchestrator projects that I will be tackling this year; all of which will be detailed in this blog. In addition...

Well I thought I was Mr. Smarty Pants and had the whole ‘running 2012 Configuration Manager cmdlets from an Orchestrator Run .Net Script activity’ figured out ( as documented in this post ). As it turns out, there is bit more to the story...

I love the integration of System Center 2012 Configuration Manage and System Center Orchestrator . Any day in which I get to work in a mutual space between these two technologies is a good day. As seen in some of my previous blog postings I have written...

Cross Forest support in Configuration Manager is a topic often discussed, can be confusing, and has changed considerably with the introduction of 2012 Configuration Manager. While each environment may have its own needs based on environmental configuration...

With the introduction of System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 Beta, we have been given access to a beta client for some distributions of the Unix/Linux Operating System. This is great news and will allow for many (but not all) Configuration Manager...

Good day all – Quick blog here. With the recent release of 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 and the new Configuration Manager PowerShell cmdlets, the stage has been set for over the top Configuration Manager automation. This week I jumped on my first...

With System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 CU1 deployments starting to roll, I have received a few inquiries into how to determine if CU1 has been appropriately applied. As a cumulative update is not a major update, the version of your Configuration...

Since the beginning of my involvement with Configuration Manager and SMS I have always considered and communicated with others the notion that software metering data can be used as a trigger mechanism for the removal of unused software. In other words...

MMS 2013 is right around the corner. While at the conference, I will be delivering one session and appearing as a guest in a second one. In each session I will be demonstrating solutions based on the interaction between System Center 2012 Configuration...

Good day all – if you were able to attend MMS2013 hope you had a great time, if not, no worries you are in luck. All MMS2013 sessions should now be available on Channel 9. Check out my session ‘Complex Maintenance Using System Center 2012...

Often times when automating a multi-step process, there is a need to build into this automation a certain amount of delay. For instance, if I have rebooted an application server, we not only need to wait for the OS to come back online, but also the application...

Hi Ho – Neil Peterson here, the in-laws have invaded my house, so I am coming to you today from the corner booth at my local coffee shop. I have a quick little treat this morning, nothing to complicated, but pretty cool and important never the less...

Introduction - Approaching my ten-year of systems management using SMS / Configuration Manager I can reflect back on many scripts, applications, and in some circumstances full systems I’ve implemented in order to facilitate a ‘self-service...