The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 5.0 Community Technical Preview (CTP) Now Available!

2009-11-10T14:38:43Z

The Solution Accelerator team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 5.0 Community Technical Preview (CTP). Designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure planning process across multiple scenarios through network-wide automated discovery and assessments, this tool provides a quick and complete inventory of the current IT environment of any organization, hardware and device compatibility assessment, and actionable reporting of recommended hardware upgrades for migration.

The MAP Toolkit 5.0 CTP includes these new features:

· Heterogeneous Server Environment Inventory for Technologies including Windows Server, Linux, UNIX and VMware.

· Ability to determine usage of deployed System Center Configuration Manager, a member of the Core Client Access License Suite.

· Readiness assessment for migration or upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010.

Over 800,000 Microsoft customers and partners including Costco Wholesale Corporation, Continental Airlines, and Pella Corporation have already downloaded and used this toolkit to help plan for their server and PC deployments.

Additional MAP Toolkit Features include:

• Windows 7 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment.
• Virtualization Candidates Assessment for Hyper-V Server Consolidation.
• Inventory of VMware Server Hosts and Guests.
• Enhanced Usability and Improved Inventory Performance.
• SQL Server Instance Discovery.
• Desktop Security Assessment for Anti-virus and Anti-malware Programs Installation.
• Forefront Client Security/NAP Readiness Assessment.

To give you a quick sample, here are a couple MAP 5.0 Inventory and Assessment Wizard screenshots:

Here’s what the System Center Configuration Manager Server Report looks like:

Next Steps

· Register for the MAP Toolkit 5.0 CTP and download. (Live ID required)

· Want to influence the future of MAP? Complete the survey and receive a free 4GB Solution Accelerator branded Memory Stick.* (Live ID required)

· Download other Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Solution Accelerators for your IT planning, deployment, and management needs.

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

Forcing a ConfigMgr Task Sequence to Rerun

2009-11-09T15:24:16Z

From our very own Steve Rachui comes another great System Center tip. This one covers how to get a Configuration Manager 2007 Task Sequence to rerun:

There are well known methods to force an advertisement to rerun – including several add-on tools available for the SMS or SCCM console. To date, however, there are not equivalent methods to force a task sequence to rerun. Part of this may be because task sequences are typically thought of as focused on Operating System Deployment (OSD) and rerunning these types of distributions are not as common as rerunning advertisements.

To continue reading see http://blogs.msdn.com/steverac/archive/2009/11/06/sccm-forcing-a-task-sequence-to-rerun.aspx

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

Automatic FixIt: You receive error 401.1 when you browse a Web site that uses Integrated Authentication and is hosted on IIS 5.1 or a later version

2009-11-05T21:14:29Z

I asked the FixIt team for this a while back and they have delivered. Now if you ever run into the symptoms below the chances are good we can automatically fix it with just a few clicks of the mouse:

The Symptoms: When you use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or a custom host header to browse a local Web site that is hosted on a computer that is running Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.1 or a later version, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

HTTP 401.1 – Unauthorized: Logon Failed

Note You only receive this error message if you try to browse the Web site directly on the server. If you browse the Web site from a client computer, the Web site works as expected.

Additionally, an event message that resembles the following event message is logged in the Security Event log. This event message includes some strange characters in the value for the Logon Process entry:

Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source: Security
Event Category: Logon/Logoff
Event ID: 537
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: Computer_Name
Description: Logon Failure:
Reason: An error occurred during logon
User Name: User_Name
Domain: Domain_Name
Logon Type: 3
Logon Process: Ðùº
Authentication Package: NTLM
Workstation Name: Computer_Name
Status code: 0xC000006D
Substatus code: 0x0
Caller User Name: -
Caller Domain: -
Caller Logon ID: -
Caller Process ID: -
Transited Services: -
Source Network Address: IP_Address
Source Port: Port_Number

The Cause: This issue occurs when the web site uses Integrated Authentication and has a name that is mapped to the local loopback address.

The Fix: If you happen to come across any symptoms like this then take a look at the following Knowledge Base article:

896861 - You receive error 401.1 when you browse a Web site that uses Integrated Authentication and is hosted on IIS 5.1 or a later version

The cool part is that this KB article contains a link to a Wizard that will fix this issue for you automatically. All you have to do is download and run it. This Loopback issue impacts almost any product that uses IIS, including your very own favorite, System Center Configuration Manager2007.

Jarrett Renshaw | Content Quality Program Manager

Some ConfigMgr 2007 clients never install packages, report status of “Waiting on content”

2009-11-04T14:50:50Z

We’ve seen this issue come up a couple times so I wanted to give it a mention here just in case you run into it. The problem is that you may notice Software Deployments are not working for a small percentage of your Configuration Manager clients and you may notice that the status of the problem clients is Waiting on content. You may also notice that the affected clients are unable to automatically re-discover their site code in the control panel applet.

Troubleshooting:

The last time I saw this, we checked the properties of the affected client's resource in the Configuration Manager 2007 Console and it showed multiple subnets for these clients (e.g. 9.9.0.0 and 9.9.9.0).

The site boundary for these clients was entered as simply 9.9.0.0 on the Site server and these boundaries did not overlap with any other site.

We then found the following error in the CAS.log which seem to point to a boundaries issue:

ctm job suspended

We enabled verbose and debug logging in the registry on one of the affected clients and then created a new advertisement and a test collection to send it to. When we did this we found the following in the LocationServices.log:

Discarding DP with SiteLocality 'FALLBACK'. Accepting only 'LOCAL' DPs. 10/30/2009 1:37:24 PM 164 (0x00A4)

The number of discovered DPs(including Branch DP and Multicast) is 0 10/30/2009 1:37:24 PM 164 (0x00A4)

When we tried to perform automatic site discovery on the client that was failing we saw this”

"LSGetAssignedSiteFromSLP : No site code returned from SLP"

"The number of discovered DPs (including Branch DP and Multicast) is 0"

Everything seemed to point to a Protected Distribution Point but there were none in this case. It also seemed like it could be a boundary issue which was not obvious on the surface since the 9.9.0.0 boundary included all of the affected clients. Also this problem did not affect all clients in these subnets, only some.

Cause:

It turns out that this issue was nonspecific Site Boundaries in the site. 9.9.0.0 is not specific enough to allow the clients to find the site and/or find its Distribution Point servers. This is referred to as super netting, and this will not yield consistent results for your Configuration Manager clients.

Solution:

Once you add a specific 9.9.9.0 subnet and/or the 9.9.8.0 subnet (whichever applies), the clients in these subnets will be able to find their Site ID and Distribution Points without error, so the solution is to add the specific individual subnets to the Site Boundaries.

More Information:

This problem can also manifest itself in other ways such as when an AD Subnet is specified as 9.9.0.0 and the AD site is added as a boundary in SMS or Configuration Manager, then you also add some specific subnets as boundaries like 9.9.1.0 and 9.9.2.0. This can also cause the same symptoms documented above.

The TechNet article below articulates the IP Subnet configuration recommendations of entering each IP subnet individually, however it does not indicate that super netting is not supported so I created this document to help shed more light on this issue since we have seen several cases with this issue.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb633084.aspx

Hope this helps,

Clifton Hughes | Senior Support Engineer

Updated Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 Management Pack – Now with 64-bit support

2009-10-29T15:06:18Z

The updated Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 Management Pack adds support for monitoring Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 in a 64-bit environment with Operations Manager 2007 R2 or Operations Manager 2007 SP1 with hotfix (KB971541) installed. This enables the Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 Management Pack to work with either the 32-bit or the 64-bit Operations Manager 2007 agent. Except for the 64-bit support, the other features and guidance for Configuration Manager 2007 Management Packs remain intact.

Note: As of today, KB971541 is not yet available. This update should be available within the next few days. When it becomes available it should be found here.

For all the details and to download the updated MP see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a8443173-46c2-4581-b3b8-ce67160f627b&displaylang=en

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

TechNet Webcast: Technical Overview: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3

2009-10-28T19:06:22Z

With the release of the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems, new capabilities and usage scenarios are emerging for system management. Economic, regulatory, green IT, and security issues continue to be the challenges organizations face. In this webcast, we provide a technical update and overview for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. We focus on Service Pack 2 and R3 enhancements, market capabilities, and describe our near-term release road map.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032428200&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

Renaming the Configuration Manager 2007 database

2009-10-27T13:50:40Z

You may find that at some point you need to change the name of the SCCM 2007 database and the steps to do so are below. I worked on a case just like this a few days back and during that time I got the opportunity to confirm that this procedure works and is supported in the lab.

We can change the Site Database name by running Site Reset Wizard but before running the Wizard make sure you have renamed the Database in SQL to your new custom name.

1. Follow the steps mentioned in link below to rename the SQL DB:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345378.aspx

2. While running Site reset, select "Modify SQL Server Configuration" and under ConfigMgr Site database option give it the new name.

3. After completing the wizard everything should be working fine except the Display name may be wrong and you’ll probably get some warning messages. For example, the name under "ConfigMgr site database server" site system role will still be pointing to old DB name and you may see the warning below:

“Microsoft SQL Server reported SQL message 911, severity 16: [08004][911][Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Could not locate entry in sysdatabases for database <name>. No entry found with that name. Make sure that the name is entered correctly.”

To resolve both of these issues we need to make changes manually to the SiteCtrl file.

1. Stop the SMS_Executive and SMS_Site_Component_Manager services on the Site Server.

2. Backup the SiteCtrl.Ct0 file from the folder %Program Files%\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Inboxes\SiteCtrl.

3. Open the SiteCtrl.Ct0 file in notepad and update the following section. In the example below SMS_BAN is my default database name. Modify the database name to reflect the new name.

BEGIN_SYSTEM_RESOURCE_USE
RESOURCE<Windows NT Server><["Display=\\SCCMSRV2\"]MSWNET:["SMS_SITE=BAN"]\\SCCMSRV2\ <file:///\\SCCMSRV2\>>
ROLE<SMS SQL Server>
BEGIN_PROPERTY_LIST
<Databases>
<SMS Database, SCCMSRV2, SMS_BAN> (Change SMS_BAN to new DB name)
END_PROPERTY_LIST
END_SYSTEM_RESOURCE_USE

4. Save the file and restart the Services.

After making the changes above the display name for the db was correct and the warnings were gone.

Note: Apart from this we noticed that Reporting Point, Reporting Services Point and Custom Maintenance tasks are few of the things need re-configuration. Basically any component which uses static database entry while connecting.

Hope this helps,

Mohammed Tajammul Hussain | Technical Support Lead

Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for October 2009

2009-10-27T13:31:32Z

Looks like the Configuration Manager content writers posted their October updates last Friday so in case you missed the announcement here’s the skinny:

The following information lists the topics that contain significant changes since the August 2009 update.

Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 Supported Configurations - Updated to include Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

Supported Operating Systems and Hard Disk Configurations for Operating System Deployment - Updated with information about the operating systems that are not supported and those which can be deployed only by first capturing a Windows installation image (.wim) file using an image capture task sequence.

Supported Mobile Devices - Updated to remove information about supported mobile device client operating systems so that it is now exclusively in supported configuration topics (Configuration Manager 2007 Supported Configurations). This means that customers have a consistent place to find supported version information and it reduces the risk of inconsistent information between topics.

About Heartbeat Discovery - Updated to remove the incorrect information "Although you can configure Heartbeat Discovery to update client DDRs as frequently as you want, if you configure it to run less than once every 25 hours (the default client refresh cycle) the updated DDR will be reported no less than once every 25 hours". This restriction applied to an earlier version of the product and does not apply to Configuration Manager.

About the Site Repair Wizard and How to Back Up a Secondary Site - Updated with the information that the Site Repair Wizard should not be used to recover a secondary site. The Product Group has confirmed that the recovery procedure doesn't work for secondary sites and will not be supported. If you need to recover a secondary site, reinstall it and secondary site configuration from the primary site will be replicated to it automatically when installation is complete. Because restoring a secondary site is not supported with the product, there is no point in backing up a secondary site by using the Backup Secondary Site Server maintenance task. To help avoid confusion, we have removed the procedural information in How to Back Up a Secondary Site.

For all the details about what’s new see http://blogs.technet.com/configmgrteam/archive/2009/10/23/announcement-configuration-manager-documentation-library-update-for-october-2009.aspx.

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

New KB: 971348 - List of hotfixes and updates that are contained in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2

2009-10-26T15:42:49Z

We had one new Knowledge Base article published last week, this one documenting the hotfixes and updates that are contained in Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2):

KB971348 - List of hotfixes and updates that are contained in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 is now available for download

2009-10-26T13:50:18Z

Just in case you missed the big announcement last Friday, Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 is now released: SP2 provides: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support that enables customers to deploy and manage their Windows 7 client and server based systems. New options for Out of Band Management that includes the addition of updated firmware support along with support for key new features such as wireless profile management and 802.1X. Branch Cache support that enables customers to significantly...(read more)

The System Center Online Desktop Manager beta is coming soon

2009-10-14T13:41:34Z

You’ve heard about it and read about and now you’ll soon have the chance to try it out yourself. The System Center Online Desktop Manager beta is coming soon: The System Center Online team has been working hard in preparation for its next beta release of System Center Online Desktop Manager , expected in the fall of this year. This exclusive beta will only be available to a select number of customers. Our last beta was only offered to a small audience and resulted in a lot of great...(read more)

How to create custom Operating System Capture Media using ConfigMgr 2007

2009-10-13T18:56:52Z

Recently I ran into a situation where I needed to customize the OS capture media in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 as the standard capture media created by ConfigMgr does not have any way to be modified or customized. The reason for customizing the capture media was to create an image with the SCCM client in it as we wanted to deploy this image to the Internet based client machines. So we started by creating a reference machine which was a Vista machine. We installed the SCCM client...(read more)

TechNet Webcast: Using Service Manager to Enhance the Capabilities of System Center Solutions

2009-10-07T20:34:26Z

In this demo-heavy webcast, we provide examples of the power of integrating Microsoft System Center Service Manager with Active Directory and the Microsoft System Center family of system management products. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager integration scenarios are demonstrated, including configuration management database (CMDB), connectors, desired configuration management (DCM) integration, alert-to-incident integration, and service map ...(read more)

TechNet Webcast: Asset Intelligence with Configuration Manager 2007

2009-10-01T23:57:34Z

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 collects asset information that can be used for license and asset management reports. In this webcast, we explain the asset management reporting that comes out of the box in Configuration Manager 2007 R2, we describe what Configuration Manager reports can be built with customizations, and we tell you about partner add-ons for reporting that are available. You also learn how to import license information and how to compare the license information...(read more)

ConfigMgr 2007: RPL files stay in MPFDM on Secondaries When You Discover AMT Management Controllers

2009-09-30T16:51:00Z

In System Center Configuration Manager 2007, when you run the Discover Management Controllers Task on AMT Enabled Devices you may find that a .rpl file gets created and does not process out on Secondary site servers. Errors like the following occur: Skip replication file 4u4h5uam.RPL as the inbox SMS_AMT_PROXY_WOL doesn't exist or hasn't yet been created. Will try later. SMS_REPLICATION_MANAGER 09/17/2009 1:12:15 PM 3260 (0x0CBC) Skip replication file krhyocib.RPL as the inbox SMS_AMT_PROXY_OM doesn't...(read more)