In previous blog posts I’ve put together a guide to automatically create the computer name in your OSD task sequences using MDT (see the link below..): Automatically generate computer name during SCCM OSD However, there is also a slightly more manual way of inputting your computer name during an OSD TS using a pop-up prompt….
This guide details how to add Products into the General Licence Statement to match up licence usages using Asset Intelligence. What this means is that you can then use Asset Intelligence reports to see what your corporate software licence usages are against what you actually have purchased. Instructions Open the Configuration Manager console. Go into…
UPDATE Although the below does help, the issue I had was actually with the WCF 3.0 Windows Update. It was this that messed up our MPs, having applied the MS “fix” (or reg hack quick fix as it really is) we have not had an issue since. I’ve had an issue for the last few…
There is an area on the Adobe website where you can download all versions of all updates in MSI format for Adobe Reader. This means that you can take these MSI’s and create any version of supersedence using the guide below: Supersede Guide The link to the FTP website of Adobe is below: Adobe Reader…
If you would like to create a report to show you the number of different Operating System’s you have, you can use this script below which should provide you with the information for Servers and the various Windows OS’s. Query SELECT CASE WHEN Caption0 LIKE ‘%XP%’ THEN ‘XP’ WHEN Caption0 LIKE ‘%Windows 7%’ THEN ‘Windows…
You may have noticed when setting up task sequence deployments for your OSD‘s or when setting up packages for the Software Catalog that you cannot run the task or program directly from the distribution point as the only option is to download the files and run from the local cache. Well, there is a setting…
We have been building a number of collections within SCCM lately so we thought we would start to build up a reference here of various collections, some simple, some more complex. We will be adding to this when we can so make sure you come back and check for updates. Computers with certain prefixes –…
One of the perils of working in IT is that I am constantly asked by friends and family the age old question; What is the best free anti-virus software? Well, there’s plenty of free anti-virus software out there and there is not really an answer to this question – there is no “best” anti-virus software, only…
If you are using an Exchange system and have self signed certificates, every year you will have to renew the certificate. An expired certificate may cause problems such as connectivity to web services, SMTP transport and Outlook prompting certificate security warnings which is extremely annoying for users and also can cause problems with Out of Office settings. To do this is very…
If you have a requirement to add any Office 2010 language packs to your SCCM 2012 Software Catalog then you may find that it is not the simplest of tasks. I’ve spent some time working on different methods of doing this and although creating the packs as an application and pushing them out is fairly…
This guide will show you what you need to do to capture a Windows XP Service Pack 3 image, which you can then capture and deploy using Configuration Manager.First of all, you need to create a full image that is ready to be captured. This is usually best to install on a virtual machine using…
If you have a Shoretel telephony environment, you may want to change the ringtone of your handset(s). You can do this with the boring built in ones or customise your handset with any tune you like. To do this, there are two methods, one for customising just one phone and another for customising all models…
If you have a Shoretel telephony environment, you may want to change the ringtone of your handset(s). You can do this with the boring built-in ones or customise your handset with any tune you like. To do this, there are two methods, one for customising just one phone and another for customising all models of…
If you need to batch convert any files into the correct Shoretel format to use for prompts, messages or ringtones, there is a simple way of doing this without having to mess around with Audacity. If you click the link below and download the zip file, you can use this tool to instantly convert the…
If you want to use an MSI to install Java for either Group Policy or for SCCM Software Catalog, you can get the MSI file you need easily from the temp location when you run the EXE file. So, first of all, you need to get the latest EXE from Java, you can get this…
If you need to find a machine for a particular user in your business using SCCM, one way you can do it is to use a custom query to find the machine that relates to the last logged on user. This means that you can run this query, it’ll prompt for a username, enter the…
I had a need today to create a Skype application in our Software Catalog. To do this, I wanted to use an MSI file as its much easier to package. After having a hunt on the internet, I found the link to download the official Skype 6.0.0.120 version of the MSI file. The link to…
If you are using custom updates for things Java or Adobe updates via WSUS and SCUP, then you need to ensure that you enable signed intranet updates for all your client machines. The best way to do this is to use Group Policy. You should create a new Group Policy Object (GPO) and apply that…
Bit of a simple one this but very useful…. If you want to add a link into the left sidebar of your windows explorer (which is the bit below): All you have to do is browse to %userprofile%\Links and then right-click, then go to New then Create Shortcut. Then follow the wizard to create a…
Like most businesses, we still have programs that rely on Windows XP to run. So, I built a Windows XP Professional image to push out to our slightly older machines where XP is needed to run these older programs. Once created, the image on some machines was working fine, but on some (mostly newer older…
If you are as stupid as me and manage to make a partition active that you shouldn’t have done, so long as you haven’t restarted the machine, there is a quick easy fix to put it right. On the machine, do the following: Go into a Command Prompt Type “diskpart” Type “list volume” Type “select…
As you may have seen on some of my previous posts, you can update Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader X via Windows Updates using SCUP through WSUS/SCCM. This stops the annoying pop-ups for users especially when they can’t install updates if they have not got local admin rights – just like standard Windows Updates, this…
You can install drivers by computer model using a WMI script during the SCCM OSD task sequence. This means that when you deploy an image, the target machine will always get the full and correct drivers for the model, rather than getting mismatched drivers. This also speeds up the deployment process. To do this is very…
UPDATE : Get WMI Query v1.6 Now Released You can use WMI for various things but one of its uses is for identifying the model name of a machine so that it can be later used for Configuration Manager OSD or maybe even for Group Policy WMI security. To find out the model name of a…
Group Policy support is now also available for Adobe Reader XI which is great news for administrators as we can now control what had previously been a bit of a pain to control in corporate environments. Most of the settings are fairly obvious so I’m not going to go through them, but below is the…
With the release of Adobe Reader XI, you may want to now make your current Adobe Reader X catalog software be superseded by the new version. This means that the old version will no longer be available in the catalog but will be replaced with the new version, it also will update anyone who has…
Adobe Reader XI was released today so I’ve now got the MSI for this version and superseded my Adobe Reader X application with this new release. If you are in need of the MSI for Adobe Reader XI, you can get it from the Adobe FTP website below: Adobe Reader XI MSI Download Files This…
A recurring issue that I have is the old Active Desktop in Windows XP. No matter how many times you click the Restore button, you still get the script error. To fix this, you can do the following: Click Start then click Run, type “regedit” and press enter Browse to “HCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\SafeMode\Components” Double click the value Desk\Html\Version…
I recently tried to get my Google Adsense working on my blog as you never know, I might make my fortune using it, but when I tried, I got this error: “The publisher must be associated with the developer account before the developer can invoke operations on the publisher’s account” After spending some time searching the internet,…
We have been looking into getting our OSD process to automatically change the computer name to what we want it to be for a while now but never really had much luck with it. Reading various forums and blogs, many people have said to use WSNAME and many others saying use scripts, all of which…
If you get an issue when trying to load a task sequence and you get the message that a package associated to the task sequence cannot be found, even when it looks like all packages are fully distributed, then you need to check out the SMSTSLog.log file that is on the machine that you are…
