Few Days ago,Microsoft released Cumulative Update 3 (supersedes Cumulative update 2 ) for Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 which has around 18 fixes related OSD,Powershell,Software Distribution etc.

More about the hotfix and download refer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2882125

Installation of Cumulative Update 3 on Configurations manager SP1 is straight forward.you would need to follow the steps,next,next ,done.

This Cumulative Update contains updates for CAS,Primary site(both Stand alone,Hierarchy),Secondary Site,SMS Provider,Configmgr Console and Configmgr Client.

I have updated my Lab with Cumulative Update 3 today,saw couple of packages gets created with this update.

Note:Close the Configuration Manager Administrator Console before you install this update.

After the installation is completed,you will see 4 Packages created 1) Console 2) server (Primary and Secondary) 3) X86 Client and 4 ) X64 Clients

Note: Configuration manager 2012 SP1 CU3 Client version : 5.00.7804.1400.

Packages resides on HotFix Folder from your Configmgr Drive.

Distribute these packages to selected distribution points,monitor the status(distmgr.log,sender.log and pkgxfermgr.log) .

Note :This patch will not install automatically on the Configmr clients, You should distribute the patch (msp file) to all existing clients in the environment.

We will now create collection for each update and then deploy the patch.

SP1 CU3-Console Update:

Select SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS on SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
where SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.DisplayName = “Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Console”
and SMS_R_System.Client = “1″ and SMS_R_System.Active = “1″

SP1 CU3-Server Update (all Pri and Sec) :

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System
where SMS_R_System.SystemRoles = “SMS Component Server“

SP1 CU3 –X86 Client Update:

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
inner join SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE on SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
where SMS_R_System.Client = “1″ and SMS_G_System_SYSTEM.SystemType = “X86-based PC”
and SMS_R_System.Active = “1″ and SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE.DisplayName = “CCM Framework”
and SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE.Version != “5.00.7804.1400“

SP1 CU3 –X64 Client Update:

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
inner join SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE on SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
where SMS_R_System.Client = “1″ and SMS_G_System_SYSTEM.SystemType = “X64-based PC”
and SMS_R_System.Active = “1″ and SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE.DisplayName = “CCM Framework”
and SMS_G_System_SMS_ADVANCED_CLIENT_STATE.Version != “5.00.7804.1400“

After you do this,collections will populate computers.

Right click on package, deploy to respective collection with required schedule.

Go to the client,do machine policy if you want this to happen quick else wait for the default machine policy retrieval.

Before the CU3 Patch installation,Client Version: 5.00.7804.1000 (SP1)

After the Patch Installation:

Client is Upgraded to CU3 with version 5.00.7804.1400

SCCM Configmgr 2012 SP1 CU3 Installation,Collections ,Upgrade Clients is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

With the recent Cumulative Update releases CU1,CU2 and now CU3 for Configuration Manager 2012 SP1,as Configmgr admin,you will have make sure to get the Configmgr clients on to the latest version.

Each cumulative update will have its new Version with its previous Cumulative Update. so if you are upgrading from previous CU’s to Newly Released Cumulative Update,you may have to look at the client versions in your environment if they are all on same boat or not.

Use this below SQL query to count the Client Versions from Configmgr environment.You can create list of PC’s with the specific client version to drill down.

select "Client Version"=
case sys.Client_Version0
when ’5.00.0000.0000′ then ‘RTM (5.00.0000.0000)’
when ’5.00.7804.1000′ then ‘SP1 (5.00.7804.1000)’
when ’5.00.7804.1202′ then ‘SP1 CU1 (5.00.7804.1202)’
when ’5.00.7804.1300′ then ‘SP1 CU2 (5.00.7804.1300)’
when ’5.00.7804.1400′ then ‘SP1 CU3 (5.00.7804.1400)’
when ’5.00.7958.1000′ then ‘R2 (5.00.7958.1000)’
else ‘Others(non-Clients)’
End,count(*) [Total]
from v_R_System sys
where sys.Name0 not like ‘unknown’
group by sys.Client_Version0
order by 2 desc

SSRS Report:

SCCM Configmgr 2012 SSRS Report:Count of Client Versions is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Second Tuesday of every month called Microsoft patch Day Patches get released and configmgr* guys busy in testing ,moving them to production.

As usual, I have Downloaded the patches,added to the package,deployed to Distribution Points ,all returned success (Decompressed the PCK successfully).Until here Good.

While testing the patches on one of the server,it just stands at downloading /Preparing for installation for quite long but nothing happens.Huh ? (login with mstsc /admin)

ok,start with basic troubleshooting by looking at contentTransfermanager.log and datatransferservice.log because these two logs plays the role whether the client attempts to download content or not

ContentTransferManager.log–> logs when  client attempts to download content from the first distribution point listed in the content location.

DataTransferService.log —>Logs if a job has been created to download the files to the client or not.

Here is what i have from the logs:

Datatransferservice.log:

Error sending DAV request. HTTP code 404, status ‘Resource Not Found’ ,

GetDirectoryList_HTTP(‘http://servername:8530/SMS_DP_SMSPKGH$/packageID/14eb1517-9a6f-461d-9dd6-656d876efbe4′) failed with code 0x8004027e.

 

Contenttransfermanager.log

Error sending HEAD request. HTTP code 500, status ‘Internal Server Error’

From the above logs,we know ,client is having issues while getting the required patch content from the Distribution Point.Client keeps trying for longer period but nothing happens.

take a look at IIS logs if it gives any further clues.

On windows server 2003,Logs located at  C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1

2013-10-10 00:02:25 W3SVC1 10.83.1.14 HEAD /SMS_DP_SMSPKGH$/PackageID/14eb1517-9a6f-461d-9dd6-656d876efbe4 – 8530 – 10.83.1.14 SMS+CCM 401 1 0

From the above snippet,you can see an error code 401 which is access denied.

I then looked at the Update ID if it really exist in the package folder or not ? Browse H:\smspkgh$\packageID for content  14eb1517-9a6f-461d-9dd6-656d876efbe4 .

I can not find it though my package is successfully decompressed and sent the status message to central site.

I compared the patch package properties with working server properties,i see there are 100+ files missing.

something interesting to know ? why did this happened ? have no time now to troubleshoot why did this happened may be later but for now ,try to fix Preparing for Installation .

Solution that worked for me:

I don’t know if there is hash value for each update that is created and downloaded by Configmgr but i gave a try to copy the missing Update IDs manually from working server to Issue DP.

Close the Configmgr software update applet (if you just close it it will be running in the background),to kill it,go to task manager,you see process called smscliui.exe ,end the process

Restart the SMS agent host service

open configuration manager applet from control panel,initiate software update deployment evaluation cycle  and software update scan cycle ,few min later you will see prompt asking to install the Windows updates if the deadline is not reached.

This time,all the required patches installed successfully

To confirm , if this solution works for all,logged into other server where in,it require different patches which are not available in DP,do a manual copy of the missing patches (which you can get from the contentransfermanager.log) from working server

Restart the SMS agent host,end the sccm client user interface,initiate the software update actions,it DID .

To avoid this issue on other clients,get the missing patch content from working server .

Hope you find this article useful.

SCCM Configmgr 2007:Software Updates Stuck at Preparing for Installation Error sending DAV request. HTTP code 404, status ‘Resource Not Found’ is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

There was a question in forum list about how to get count of clients by its status (active,obsolete etc). I looked at it if there is any way to get it without report but No.

In Configuration Manager 2007,to know the count of Computers from collection,You right click on collection,click show Count will give us the information but in Configmgr 2012,this is not possible until you develop some custom tools to get this.By default ,You can only see the total number of clients Count and members visible but not how many active,obsolete etc .

I created simple report that produces this info.

Use the Below SQL Code to create SSRS report.

select fcm.collectionid [Collection ID],coll.Name,
count(case when fcm.IsActive=1 then ‘*’ else NULL end) [Active Clients],
count(case when fcm.IsClient= 1 then ‘*’ else NULL end) [Client Installed],
count(case when fcm.IsAssigned=1 then ‘*’ else NULL end) [Assigned Clients],
count(case when fcm.IsObsolete= 1 then ‘*’ else NULL end) [Obsolete Clients]
from v_FullCollectionMembership fcm,v_Collection coll
where fcm.ResourceType=’5′ and fcm.CollectionId=coll.CollectionID
group by fcm.CollectionID,coll.Name
order by fcm.CollectionID

Note:Change the quotes as they are not regular.

SSRS Results:

Configmgr SSRS Report:List all collections with count of client installed,assigned,active and Obsolete is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Full details:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/82a7862a-fc1c-4c45-9635-ee44489c2673/file-inventory-report-query-by-name-count-and-machineid?forum=configmgrreporting

select cs.Name0 [Computer name],COUNT(*) as [No of Times]
from v_GS_SoftwareFile SF,v_GS_COMPUTER_SYSTEM cs
where FileName like ‘%.mdf%’ and
SF.ResourceID=cs.ResourceID
group by cs.Name0
order by 2 desc

SCCM Configmgr report:Count specific inventory file on computers is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

If you search on the web for patch compliance report in configmgr,you get various reports of which you can customize it if you still need the way you want.I don’t see any standard report that tell the compliant % for each month in one line ?

How do you monitor the overall progress of the current month and its previous months ? let say,for the current month,compliant machines are 500(which have got all approved patches) and noncompliance and its % in one line ?

How about something like this ?

Not sure how many of you already seen post from Alexsemi who has developed report by month wise since from beginning(based on the patch date posted).

Criteria’s used in the query:

1. Category: Security patches

2. Products: All

3. Severity: Critical and Important

4. One missing patch brings entire computer to noncompliance.

If you are into configuration manager 2007 and using classic report feature,you can use the below SQL code which is also available here to download .

if you are into Configuration manager 2012 ,you will have to create SSRS report ,for which i have uploaded the .RDL file here ,so download and upload it to your SSRS reports.

SELECT D.MonthPosted , Compliant , Incompliant [Non-Compliant],Compliant + Incompliant [Total], cast(Compliant / ( (Compliant + Incompliant) /100.0) as decimal(5,2) ) as [Compliant %],
cast(Incompliant / ( (Compliant + Incompliant) /100.0) as decimal(5,2) ) as [Non-Compliant %]
FROM
(
Select MonthPosted, Count(1) as Compliant FROM
(
SELECT MonthPosted, ResourceID
FROM (SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID, v_UpdateComplianceStatus.Status, CAST(DATEPART(yyyy,
v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS varchar(255)) + ‘-’ + RIGHT(’0′ + CAST(DATEPART(mm, v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS VARCHAR(255)), 2)
AS MonthPosted, COUNT(1) AS Count
FROM v_UpdateComplianceStatus INNER JOIN
v_UpdateInfo ON v_UpdateComplianceStatus.CI_ID = v_UpdateInfo.CI_ID INNER JOIN
v_R_System ON v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID = v_R_System.ResourceID
WHERE (v_R_System.Obsolete0 = 0 AND v_R_System.Client0 = 1 AND v_R_System.Active0 = 1) AND (v_UpdateInfo.Severity IN (8, 10)) AND (v_UpdateInfo.IsSuperseded = 0) AND (v_UpdateInfo.IsEnabled = 1)
GROUP BY v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID, v_UpdateComplianceStatus.Status, CAST(DATEPART(yyyy,
v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS varchar(255)) + ‘-’ + RIGHT(’0′ + CAST(DATEPART(mm, v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS VARCHAR(255)), 2)) A
where Status =3
AND not exists
(
SELECT B.MonthPosted, B.ResourceID
FROM (SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID, v_UpdateComplianceStatus.Status, CAST(DATEPART(yyyy,
v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS varchar(255)) + ‘-’ + RIGHT(’0′ + CAST(DATEPART(mm, v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS VARCHAR(255)), 2)
AS MonthPosted, COUNT(1) AS Count
FROM v_UpdateComplianceStatus INNER JOIN
v_UpdateInfo ON v_UpdateComplianceStatus.CI_ID = v_UpdateInfo.CI_ID INNER JOIN
v_R_System ON v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID = v_R_System.ResourceID
WHERE (v_R_System.Obsolete0 = 0 AND v_R_System.Client0 = 1 AND v_R_System.Active0 = 1) AND (v_UpdateInfo.Severity IN (8, 10)) AND (v_UpdateInfo.IsSuperseded = 0) AND (v_UpdateInfo.IsEnabled = 1)
GROUP BY v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID, v_UpdateComplianceStatus.Status, CAST(DATEPART(yyyy,
v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS varchar(255)) + ‘-’ + RIGHT(’0′ + CAST(DATEPART(mm, v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS VARCHAR(255)), 2)) B
where Status =2
and B.MonthPosted = A.MonthPosted and B.ResourceID = A.ResourceID
Group By MonthPosted, ResourceID
)
Group By MonthPosted, ResourceID
) C
Group By MonthPosted
) D,
( SELECT MonthPosted, Count(1) as Incompliant
FROM (SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID, v_UpdateComplianceStatus.Status, CAST(DATEPART(yyyy,
v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS varchar(255)) + ‘-’ + RIGHT(’0′ + CAST(DATEPART(mm, v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS VARCHAR(255)), 2)
AS MonthPosted, COUNT(1) AS Count
FROM v_UpdateComplianceStatus INNER JOIN
v_UpdateInfo ON v_UpdateComplianceStatus.CI_ID = v_UpdateInfo.CI_ID INNER JOIN
v_R_System ON v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID = v_R_System.ResourceID
WHERE (v_R_System.Obsolete0 = 0) AND (v_UpdateInfo.Severity IN (8, 10)) AND (v_UpdateInfo.IsSuperseded = 0) AND (v_UpdateInfo.IsEnabled = 1)
GROUP BY v_UpdateComplianceStatus.ResourceID, v_UpdateComplianceStatus.Status, CAST(DATEPART(yyyy,
v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS varchar(255)) + ‘-’ + RIGHT(’0′ + CAST(DATEPART(mm, v_UpdateInfo.DatePosted) AS VARCHAR(255)), 2)) F
where Status =2
Group By MonthPosted ) E
where D.MonthPosted = E.MonthPosted
order by MonthPosted Desc

Sccm Configmgr 2012 :Patch Compliance Summary Report Month Wise is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Good news to Configmgr guys.Yesterday Microsoft announced another Free book called “Microsoft System Center: Troubleshooting Configuration Manager “ which talks about site hirarchy,distribution points,understanding configuration manager components,log files,troubleshooting scenarios.

I think this guide will provide you to understand various components of Configuration Manager on both the server and client side work together while performing the tasks also the real world troubleshooting with log files.

Download the Configuration manager 2012 Troubleshooting Guide from here

If you are looking for Configuration Manager 2012 Field Experience guide from Microsoft experts,download it from here

via http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2013/11/12/free-ebook-microsoft-system-center-troubleshooting-configuration-manager.aspx

SCCM Configmgr 2012 Troubleshooting Guide –Free EBook from Microsoft is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

In my previous blog post,i talked about how to compare 2 distribution points to see if they both have any applications mismatch.This blog post talks about how to distribute the missing apps to the Distribution Point.

I have used basic inbuilt Configmgr powershell commands for this activity,more via here

Note:Use the package names as input file rather Package ID’s.

Below powershell script works for applications,packages,driver packages,boot images and OS images.You need to remove the # tag(to uncomment) to distribute specific package type.

#change the path of psd1
import-module F:\sccm\AdminConsole\bin\ConfigurationManager.psd1
#Change the site Code
cd P01:
$SiteCode = “P01”
#provide the path for list of applications to be distributed
$packages =GC “C:\users\eswar\desktop\pkglist.txt”
$server=‘DPname.eskonr.com’
foreach ($packagename in $packages)
{
#for applications
#Start-CMContentDistribution -ApplicationName  “$packagename” -DistributionPointName “$server”

#For packages
#Start-CMContentDistribution -PackageName  “$packagename” -DistributionPointName “$server”

#For Driverpackage names
#Start-CMContentDistribution -DriverPackageName  “$packagename” -DistributionPointName “$server”

#For Bootimages
#Start-CMContentDistribution -BootImageName  “$packagename” -DistributionPointName “$server”

#For OSImages
#Start-CMContentDistribution –OperatingSystemImageName  “$packagename” -DistributionPointName “$server”

#output results

“Pkg:” + $packagename + ” “+ “distributed to” + ” “+ “Server:” +$server | Out-File -FilePath C:\users\eswar\desktop\server-distribute-results.txt -Append
}

download the powershell script from technet Gallery

How to refresh package on many DP’s : http://eskonr.com/2013/09/sccm-configmgr-powershell-script-refresh-package-on-multiple-distribution-points/

Configmgr 2012:Powershell script add packages, applications,Drivers to Distribution Point is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

I recently had interesting issue with Configmgr 2012 SP1 CU3 client.Many Optional applications in Software Center changes to 4/10/1998 for ‘Available After’

This issue was posted on several forums but there is not solution yet why is this happening.

After working with Microsoft,found the root cause but no permanent solution ,instead we have temporary workaround to fix this issue.

Issue:

Applications appear as Old date(1998) in Software Center for ‘Available After’ which is unclear to end users about the application availability and they tend to ignore it.

Take a look at the picture below,for Microsoft office project professional 2007 application,the available after date shows as 4/10/1998.Why is this ? and for test project professional application,it show correct date .why ?

This is not application issue nor client issue nor Server issue then where is the problem,

Basic Troubleshooting:

The first thing that comes in mind is,check the Scheduled date for the Deployment ,what date it is specified ? You are wrong.The scheduled date is correct but it will not display here.

2nd is to look at wmi ,application information is stored in “root\ccm\clientsdk” namespace.Startdate for the specific application show wrong Date.

3rd to look is,run the policy spy and check the properties for the problem package using the application assignment ID,you will see correct date which was scheduled in application deployment but why is this showing as 1998 ?

4th to look at all the logs(expecially policyagent.log,DCMagent.log,ccmstatestore.log) but they don’t reveal much information.

After doing lot of troubleshooting on the client,found the issue is causing because of Task Sequence .Confused ?

Root Cause:

Applications which are deployed to clients are also part of Task Sequence as referenced packages ,the two deployments causing the clients to go back to old Date.

More explanation:

Assume Task sequence(TS1) which is used to deploy OS is targeted to Collection(coll1) as Optional (not mandatory).This task sequence has many actions for applications For Ex: MS project professional (app1)

So the clients which are part of Collection coll1 (considering the cm12 client is installed) will have information about App1 which used in the Task sequence(ts1).

I also created deployment for App1 and targeted to ms office project collection(coll2) with available option(not Required).

So far,No confusions.One TS to coll1 and one application(App1) to coll2.

after the deployment is done ,if you look at the software center,if it will show wrong date(1998),then client is not synced correctly and this is happening because of 2 deployments, one from Task Sequence and other from Application Deployment.

To Confirm this,I tested by creating few deployments for the applications used in Task sequence and deployed to test collection(for the clients who are part of TS),i see the same behavior.

Workaround: Do not use the same application which is referenced in Task sequence for the application deployment.Recreate the application used in Task sequence and deploy to clients that will show the right information for ‘available after’.

Microsoft is working on the fix,Stay Tunes for updates.

Configmgr 2012 "Available after" date in Software Center changes to 4/10/1998 is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Quick post on the Boundaries and its assigned Site Servers which are nothing but Distribution Points.Simply creating boundaries does not make clients to get connected to DP and download the content.

you will have create assign these boundaries to boundary group and boundary group to Site+Content location.

Here is report to list all Boundaries and its connected Distribution Points.

Note: Boundary Name is nothing but Description what you gave.

I have uploaded the .RDL ile onto TechNet gallery.Download it from here.

SCCM 2012 SSRS report: Site Servers and its assigned boundary information is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Microsoft released System center 2012 R2 Configuration manager tool kit which contains fifteen downloadable tools to help you manage and troubleshoot Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager both clients and server.

List of tools available after you install the Configmgr 2012 R2 tool kit are listed below:

Note:* mark represents the the tool is new in R2 and its requires Configmgr 2012 R2 for full functionality.

Client Based Tools:

• Client Spy – A tool that helps you troubleshoot issues related to software distribution, inventory, and software metering on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Configuration Manager Trace Log Viewer – A tool used to view log files created by Configuration Manager components and agents.
• Deployment Monitoring Tool – The Deployment Monitoring Tool is a graphical user interface designed help troubleshoot Applications, Updates, and Baseline deployments on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Policy Spy – A policy viewer that helps you review and troubleshoot the policy system on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Power Viewer Tool – A tool to view the status of power management feature on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Send Schedule Tool – A tool used to trigger a schedule on a client or trigger the evaluation of a specified DCM Baseline. You can trigger a schedule either locally or remotely.
• Wakeup Spy – A tool that provides a view of the power state of Configuration Manager client computers and which operate as managers or manages.

Server Based Tools:

• * DP Job Manager – A tool that helps troubleshoot and manage ongoing content distribution jobs to Configuration Manager distribution points.
• * Collection Evaluation Viewer – A tool that assists in troubleshooting collection evaluation related issues by viewing collection evaluation details.
• * Content Library Explorer – A tool that assists in troubleshooting issues with and viewing the contents of the content library.
• Security Configuration Wizard Template for Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager – The Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) is an attack-surface reduction tool for the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. Security Configuration Wizard determines the minimum functionality required for a server’s role or roles, and disables functionality that is not required.
• Content Library Transfer – A tool that transfers content from one disk drive to another.
• Content Ownership Tool – A tool that changes ownership of orphaned packages (packages without an owner site server).
• Role-based Administration Modeling and Auditing Tool – This tool helps administrators to model and audit RBA configurations.
• Run Metering Summarization Tool – The purpose of this tool is to run the metering summarization task to analyze raw metering data

Download the tool Via http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36213

SCCM Configmgr 2012 R2 Toolkit Available for download is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Long Ago, I posted blog on “How do i know what packages are transferring from specific site to Distribution Points and what is the % of content left and completed using tool called sender analyzer ,More info here .

Sender Analyzer basically analyses the sender.log for the Site you connect from the Tool and DPJobmgr.exe basically analyzes pkgxfermgr.log on the Site that you connect,I think this tool can be called as ‘package transfer analyzer’ tool

Due to the changes in Configmgr 2012,the above tool no more support and haven’t see any other tool that gets the similar information.

Configmgr 2012 R2 toolkit bring out some nice tools which really helps troubleshooting day to day activities .One of the new tools which was added into R2 Toolkit is Distribution Point Job Queue Manager (DPJobMgr.exe) which helps troubleshooting and managing ongoing content distribution jobs to Distribution Points also it be easy for us to know how many min/hrs/days it takes to send complete package.

In this post,i will walk though the features and how to use this Tool.

The tool displays the list of jobs that the package transfer manager component has in its queue as well as the status of the jobs (ready to be executed(Pipeline which you can see from inbox folder, running or retrying).

This tool also allows manipulation of the jobs in the queue, moving jobs higher on the list, cancelling or even kick start running a job manually.

Note:This tool do not support to connect to CAS OR Secondary Site to know what packages are sending to its child Sites .It works only to know the content sending from Primary Site.

lets run the tool (dpjobmgr.exe),Enter the primary Site server name,click connect

Note:Full administration permission is required to make the connection

Once the connection is successfully established ,You can see a notification at the bottom of the tool that confirms that the tool is connected to the site server saying ‘connect to Site server was successful’.

This tool Consists of 5 tabs,will go through each one except Help button

Overview Tab:

This tab Shows the summary of all the jobs on all distribution points(this tool do not display primary or secondary sites,shows only DP’s).

After sometime,I added package to the DP.Refresh the Overview Tab

All the nodes are self explanatory here.

1. Distribution Point: Lists the names of the distribution points

2. Running Jobs: Shows the number of concurrent jobs that are running on a particular distribution point.

Note: Number of concurrent software distributions is a setting that can be modified in Software Distribution Component Properties.

3. Total Jobs: Shows the number of all the jobs that are targeted to a particular distribution point. This number includes the jobs that are running, retrying, or waiting to be executed.

4. Total Retries: Shows the number of times jobs have been retrying in a particular distribution point. Higher number may represent a general problem in that particular distribution point.

Refresh—>To refresh the Overview tab which gets the updated information(if there are any jobs added to the queue while you are on this tool)

Start Auto Refresh—>Refresh this tab automatically to know if there are any new jobs added to the package transfer queue(Default is 2 min).

Distribution Point Info Tab:

This tab Shows the list of all the distribution points under the particular site(P01) that the tool is connected to. (keep in mind,only DP’s but not secondary sites).

List of all the distribution points can be seen on the left hand side pane, you can select which distribution points you want to see the status of current running jobs.You can also select all Distributions if you want.

The right hand pane will show the jobs only for the selected distribution points.

From the above screenshot,i have one job running which is Windows 8 image.

For each Distribution Point,you would see 8 columns and i think they are all self explanatory like software name,package ID,Size of the package,what is the progress %,start/restart time,no of retries and DP name.

If you are sending BIG packages like OS images or other apps,it takes time to get the the progress (%) of the completion and shown under “Progress” column .

Note:Each column can be sorted either by descending or ascending order.

Manage Jobs Tab:

Shows list of all the jobs and their status in one view.

This tab also Contains the same eight columns as the “Distribution Point Info” tab, but now all the jobs can be right clicked to perform certain actions like cancel the package,retry etc.

Right click actions are described below:

1. Run: Kick starts a job that is in any state other than running

2. Move To Top: Moves one or multiple jobs to the top of the queue, this may result in this jobs to start running immediately. A lower priority job can pause running as a consequence of this action.

3. Move Up: Moves a particular job one row above, a lower priority job can pause running as a consequence of this action.

4. Move Down: Moves a particular job one row below.

5. Move To Bottom: Moves one or multiple jobs to the bottom of the queue.

6. Cancel: Tries to cancel one or multiple jobs.

Note :Jobs that are near their final completion time or jobs that are on site server (if the site server is also a distribution point) cannot be cancelled.

From the above screenshot,you can the job running.By mistake,you distributed the BIG packages to unwanted DP’s and you want to cancel the process before it completes,right click on the package and say cancel.

You get prompted with below screen asking for confirmation.

If you click on Yes,it will send the package notification instruction (.pkn)to cancel the thread which you can see from pkgxfermgr.log file.

Nice to have such cool tools for content troubleshooting.

Configmgr 2012 R2 Toolkit: DP Job Queue manager (DPJobmgr.exe) pkgxfermgr.log Analyzer is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Quick post on the Distribution Point availability Error.Primary Site cannot check the availability of the Remote Distribution Point servers and Sitestat.log generating error messages continuously for DP servers

“omGetServerRoleAvailabilityState could not read from the registry on CMDP01.eskonr.com; error = 6:”

“Failed to get the Availability State on server CMDP01.eskonr.com for role SMS Distribution Point.”

How to Fix this ?

Create a DWord Registry key with name ‘Availability State’ and value=0 on the problem DP servers.

Path to create DW Registry name and value:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Operations Management\SMS Server Role\SMS Distribution Point

After sometime, site server polls the Remote DP servers,it will check the availability and update the information in the Database.

you see something like this.

if you are running this issue on large number of servers,use the below VB script.

ON ERROR RESUME NEXT
Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
Set objfso = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set servers = objfso.OpenTextFile ("servers.txt", 1)
Set outputList = objfso.OpenTextFile ("outputList.txt", 2, True)
do While Not servers.AtEndOfStream
strcomputer=servers.readline
   Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
   strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Operations Management\SMS Server Role\SMS Distribution Point"
   oreg.setDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strkeypath, "Availability State" , "0"
if err=0 then
outputList.WriteLine "Registry added onto" & vbTab & strcomputer
else
outputList.WriteLine "Registry not added onto" & vbTab & strcomputer
end if
loop
   msgbox "Done"

Configmgr 2012:Failed to get the Availability State on server for role SMS Distribution Point Error:6 sitestat.log is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

When you install the Distribution Point role from Configmgr 2012 primary site,it automatically install +Configure IIS ,WDS for you .Later,you can configure the WDS settings to support for unknown computers etc.

Recently,i had issue with unknown/Known clients that,they get IP address from DHCP ,prompts to press F12 , try to connect to WDS server but immediately start giving \boot\BCD error.

The below picture shows that,Configmgr 2012 is not responding to clients after Client try to connect to WDS.

Upon this error,we straight away check if boot images are available on the DP or not,check the remoteinstall folder on the DP server if they are correctly placed.

try to restart the Windows Deployment server service if that helps in otherway what else ? None of the above solve the problem.

For all PXE booting related things,configmgr create log file called smspxe.log which provides information about PXE service point.

On the Distribution Point server,you will find this log from <Installation Drive>:\SMS_DP$\sms\logs. SMSPXE.log shows old date(2 months Ago)

from above screen,you can see,smsdpprov.log is updated with today’s date but smspxe.log is OLD.There is something wrong with PXE service Point role installation/Configuration ?

How to Fix it ?

Solution: Remove the PXE support role ,wait for sometime until it remove and enable it back again.

Go back to your Configmgr console,administration pane—Distribution Point,properties of the Distribution Point,uncheck the PXE support for clients.

wait for the removal of PXE support on the target DP.How do you confirm it is success of nor ?

From your RemoteInstall Folder on the DP,SMSimages,SMSboot folders will be deleted.

Upon confirmation,try enabling the PXE Support function(you don’t need to redistribute the boot images if you have already distributed to the DP),PXE role will be configured correctly,clients will be able to boot .

More information from  SMSPXE.log.

************************************** If you have many Remote Distribution Points that also server PXE support,how do you check before clients reporting this issue ?*****************************

Use the simple vbscript to find servers which are not updated the SMSPXE.log since long.

ON ERROR RESUME NEXT
Set objfso = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set servers = objfso.OpenTextFile ("servers.txt", 1)
Set objoutputfile = objfso.OpenTextFile ("Results.txt", 2, True)
filename="SMSPXE.log"
Do While Not servers.AtEndOfStream
strcomputer = servers.ReadLine
If objFSO.fileExists("\\" & strComputer & "\F$\SMS_DP$\sms\logs\" & filename) Then
set objfile=objfso.GetFile ("\\" & strComputer & "\F$\SMS_DP$\sms\logs\" & filename)
objoutputfile.WriteLine  strcomputer & vbTab & objFile.DateLastModified
Else
objoutputfile.WriteLine filename & vbTab & "do not Exist" & vbtab & strcomputer
End If
loop
msgbox("done")

Until next

Configmgr 2012:PXE Boot Error Windows Failed to Start \Boot\BCD is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

This is the last post for this year and it has been really a busy year with configuration manager 2012 migration activities and some cool products from Microsoft.

To kick off the new year, I’d like to share with you data on my blog’s activity in 2013 how did blog went with posts,number of visitors and some interesting count.

I would like to thank you for reading the blogs on www.eskonr.com and supporting me in writing.

Statistics for the Year 2011

Statistics for the Year 2012

Crunchy numbers:

This blog was viewed about 270,000 times in 2013 ,compared to last year,its Huge.In 2013, there were 68 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 381 posts.

The busiest day of the year was January 30th with1,646 views. The most popular post that day was Hyper-v Share folders between Host and Guest Operating System.

Attractions in 2013:

These are the posts that got the most views in 2013.

• 1 Hyper-v Share folders between Host and Guest Operating System 3 COMMENTS October 2012
• 2 How to Fix WMI issues automatically 11 COMMENTS January 2012
• 3 SCCM report/collection for computers with Internet Explorer with different versions 32 COMMENTS April 2010
• 4 How to activate windows 8 Via command prompt ? 2 COMMENTS August 2012
• 5 Microsoft Office 2013 is available for download, languages packs,Office Customization Tool and other surprises !!!

How did they find eskonr.com?

Some visitors came searching, mostly for sccm 2012 sp1 prerequisites, sccm 2012 sp1 requirements, activate windows 8 command line, and sccm client center 2012.

The top referring sites in 2013 were:

1. social.technet.microsoft.com (Microsoft TechNet Forum)
2. windows-noob.com (Blog from Configmgr MVP Niall Brady with Tag line Showing You How to Do)
3. facebook.com(Social Networking)
4. linkedin (social networking)
5. Twitter (Social networking)

Where did they come from?

That’s 193 countries in all!

Most visitors came from The United States. India & The United Kingdom were not far behind.

Thank you all and Hope you have enjoyed the technical stuff available from this Blog.Hope we do many things in the new year with configuration manager 2012 and and its connected Components.

Blog Stats for the Year 2013 is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Some information about proxy MP before we jump into the subject. Proxy Management Point(On Secondary Site) used mainly to avoid the excessive bandwidth usage over Slow Network links between clients located in the boundaries of a secondary site

By Default,Proxy management Point and Distribution Point role will be enabled and installed with secondary site. More information about Proxy Management Point,read Technet and msdn blog

The concept of Boundaries are changed in SCCM 2012 comparing with its previous version SCCM 2007.You should configure the Boundaries and Boundary group correctly .To know more ,refer Jason Blog explaining about Secondary Site and boundary Groups

Recently ,I come across request asking for ,how many clients,specific secondary site is supporting /responsible for.

Did you ever come across ,knowing the Client secondary Site Proxy management or Resident Management point ? How to get the Secondary Site code for clients residing in its boundaries into Database ?

As you know,you can not create report or collection based on the Secondary site Code because the site code for clients residing in boundaries of secondary always show as  Primary Site Code(PRI) .

If you look at the Configuration manager applet of client which is residing in the secondary site boundary, you can see proxy Management ,Resident Management Point and its Assigned Management Point information.

From the above screen,we are sure that,this information is pulling from wmi isn’t it ? .we need to find out the Namespace and classes.

Client properties information is stored in root\ccm namespace.You will find interesting information from this name space about client like its client ID,Client ID Change Date, Installed Components, User Logon events etc, which is not available by default in Configmgr Database.To know more about available classes,you can run wbemtest and connect to \\root\ccm name space,click enum classes,recursive and explore the existing classes like SMS_LOCALMP and SMS_MPProxyInformation.

How do we get this information into SCCM Database ?as usual,through MOF file ? Nope ,now we are in 2012 not in 2007.SCCM 2012 made it very easy to enable custom inventory classes.

Go to your primary Site console,administration node—>Client settings—>Click on the properties of Default client settings.(You can not import any custom inventory classes to custom Client agent settings,you should always enable them in default Client agents),click on set Classes from hardware inventory

Click on Add

Click on connect,you can connect to wmi of any SCCM Client computer to get the required WMI classes

connecting to the computer which has sccm client installed.

if you are interested in other classes,you can select them as well.Click ok,ok

Before you confirm the changes,make sure what information do you really required.Click ok and ok on the Default Client agent settings.

These changes are tracked by dataldr.log(F:\sccm\logs) for the creation of views in Database.You see something like this.

It takes a while to load the policy to the client machines(based on machine policy interval) ,send client inventory information to site server to process into Database.

If you need quick results,trigger machine policy and hardware inventory policy on the local server,wait for results to come up in the Database.

The two SQL views created are: V_GS_LOCALMP and V_GS_SMS_MPPROXYINFORMATION
Below is SQL Query to know the count of computers under the Secondary Sites.

select LM.name0 [Secondary Site],LM.sitecode0 [Site Code],LM.mastersitecode0[Master Site],
Count(*) [Total Clients] from v_gs_sms_localmp  LM,v_R_System sys
where sys.ResourceID=lm.resourceid
and sys.Active0=1 and lm.index0=1
group by lm.name0,lm.sitecode0,LM.mastersitecode0

Configmgr 2012 SSRS Report:Know how many clients your Secondary Site is Supporting is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

couple of days ago,I have got request says, configmgr clients are failed to install the applications from software center on specific Site .This leads me to check the client logs.

datatransferservice.log says,successfully sent location service HTTP Failure message, Error sending DAV Request.HTTP Code 500,Status ‘Internal server Error’.

As you can see from below screen,client are unable to download the content Via IIS with error code:500 which tells you that,something went Wrong with IIS.

Logged into the server ,open IIS manager(inetmgr),tried to browse SMS_DP_SMSPKG$ share using http://localhost:80/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/pkglib

Physical path Drive:\sccmcontentlib is set correctly .what could be the issue ?

Before I Dig into solution,first step always ,compare the applicationhost.config file with working server ( file path C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config).

How do you compare it ? manually checking or any tools that compare for you ? I use WinMerge Tool does the comparison.(There could be better tools than this).

open the tool,input both the files(not working and working).This tool compare line by line and display the unmatched lines with Yellow Color.

Start looking with SMS distribution(ctrl+F find Option) ,this is what we should look for the difference If any.

As you can above,’Enable32BitAppOnWin64 is set to True which supposed to be False for SMS Distribution Points Pool.

Go back to IIS,Application Pools,Locate SMS Distribution Points Pool—Right click –>Advanced Settings

Change the Setting ‘Enable 32-Bit Applications’=False

Note: There could be several reasons that you get error:500,it doesn’t mean,all the 500 error is causing because of this setting.

Click Ok (no need to restart the IIS service)

Browse the Content http://localhost:80/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/pkglib, this time it list all the configuration files.

Back to Clients,Retry the installation,it connect to IIS ,download the content ,install the App.

Configmgr 2012:Error sending DAV request.HTTP Code 500,Status ‘Internal server Error’ datatransferservice.log is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

Cumulative Update (CU) 4 which replaces Cumulative Update 3 for Configuration manager 2012 SP1 is now available that describes the issues that are fixed and the functionality updated.

CU4 addresses the below issues that are fixed:

• Software distribution
• Operating System Deployment
• Administrative console
• Application Virtualization
• Endpoint Protection
• Site Server

For all the details and a download link ,refer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2922875

Restart Information: You do not have to restart the computer after you apply this update.
Note :It is recommend to close the Configuration Manager Administrator Console before you install this update.

SCCM Configmgr 2012 SP1 Cumulative Update 4 (KB2922875) is available is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

In my previous blog post,i talked about how to compare 2 distribution points to see if they both have any applications mismatch.This blog post talks about how to distribute the missing apps to the Distribution Point.

I have used basic inbuilt Configmgr PowerShell commands for this activity,more via here

Get a list of applications,packages,drivers,Boot images ,OS images missing using SQL query from my previous blog or you can your own queries to get packages and server names.

Export the results into CSV file format which will be the input for our script to these apps to multiple Distribution Points.

Your csv file format should look like this:

Note:You do not need to install excel on the server from ,where you run the script.it is just csv ,works with notepad.

Below powershell script works for applications,packages,driver packages,boot images and OS images.

import-module F:\sccm\AdminConsole\bin\ConfigurationManager.psd1

#Change the site Code
$SiteCode = "P01"

#Change File Location
Import-Csv C:\Users\eswar\Desktop\add-packages.csv |`
    ForEach-Object {
        $PackageType = $_.PackageType
        $PackageName = $_.PackageName
        $ServerName = $_.ServerName
       
           
            #For packages
            If($PackageType -eq "Package")
            {
                #echo "This is a Package"
                start-CMContentDistribution -PackageName  "$PackageName" -DistributionPointName "$ServerName"
            }
               
            #For applications
            If($PackageType -eq "Application")
            {
                #echo "This is an Application"
                start-CMContentDistribution -ApplicationName  "$PackageName" -DistributionPointName "$ServerName"
            }
           
            #For Driverpackages
            If($PackageType -eq "Driver")
            {
                #echo "This is a Driver"
                Start-CMContentDistribution -DriverPackageName  "$PackageName" -DistributionPointName "$ServerName"
            }
           

            #For BootImages
            If($PackageType -eq "BootImage")
            {
                #echo "This is a BootImage"
                Start-CMContentDistribution -BootImageName  "$packagename" -DistributionPointName "$server"

            }
           
            #For OSImage
            If($PackageType -eq "OSImage")
            {
                #echo "This is a OSimage"
                Start-CMContentDistribution –OperatingSystemImageName  "$packagename" -DistributionPointName "$server"
             }

            }

         
   

How to refresh package on many DP’s : http://eskonr.com/2013/09/sccm-configmgr-powershell-script-refresh-package-on-multiple-distribution-points/

Configmgr 2012:Updated PowerShell script add packages, applications,Drivers to Distribution Point is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog

This is updated post for long ago blogged post http://eskonr.com/2010/04/sccm-reportcollection-for-computers-with-internet-explorer-with-different-versions/.

are you in search of getting summary of IE Versions ,so that you can plan for the migration of Old IE Versions to current version ?

Below is the SSRS/SQL report which will help you to get count of IE Versions and total.

SQL Query used in Report(if you are still running on SCCM 2007):

SELECT distinct SUBSTRING(sf.fileversion, -1, CHARINDEX(‘.’, sf.fileversion) +1 ) AS [IE Version],
COUNT(*) as Count from v_GS_SoftwareFile SF where FileName=’iexplore.exe’
group by SUBSTRING(sf.fileversion, -1, CHARINDEX(‘.’, sf.fileversion) +1 )
order by 2

Note:Replace the quotes with original.

SSRS Report attached here. Download the rdl file and upload to your SSRS report folder.

Configmgr :SSRS Report count of IE Versions is a post from: Eswar Koneti's Blog