Gatt's Ramblings

For ages this has been giving me a very large headache..

How do I specify the name for a new PC that has never been on the Domain?

Up until now, I’ve had the nightmare where it gets given the name MININT-and then when I rename it after SCCM shows a duplicate in the console causing most of SCCM to break (Software Distributions, Updates – the lot!)

The solution was so simple when I found it (thanks to http://sccmguy.com) :

His recommendation is to create a Collection Variable on the “Unknown Computers” collection called “OSDComputerName” with no value . The idea behind this is that OSD will then prompt you to enter a value during the deployment..

It worked a treat and now, without any messy scripts I can easily give new PCs the correct name from the word go.!!

The full post can be found here: http://sccmguy.com/2011/02/26/how-to-specify-the-computer-name-during-a-configmgr-os-deployment

Been having trouble getting OSD to run correctly in Native Mode

My SMSTSLog file from the client was returning an error stating that it was unable to get a Certificate for it to continue

“In SSL, but with no client cert” and “sending with winhttp failed; 80072f8f. retrying.”

So after a quick google of the error in the log I came across a TechNet article that referred to importing the Root CA certificate into the Site Server:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680501.aspx

Worked a treat and I can now start deploying to a machine…

So I’ve been playing with SCCM 2007 and the Software Update Point (SUP) again, specifically with the search folders.

The aim was to try and find a structure that was easy to follow and maintain all the updates without much fuss. I created the usual folders for Weekly and Monthly updates which works well and makes for easily finding all the new updates to be deployed

My next task was to try and quickly find any missed updates that still needed to be deployed.

Looking at the columns in the search folders, I found 3 columns of interest:

• Installed – How many machines the specific update had been installed successfully on
• Required – How many machines an update needs to be installed on (ie missing)
• Not Required – How many machines don’t require the specific update

The column of interest is “Required” as this tells us what updates are missing from machines. Now we need to create a search folder containing only these missing updates…

When you look at the search criteria dialog you will find an option for the Required column. What’s not made clear is what you can enter in the criteria, even Microsoft tell you its a simple txt string with the OR operator with this example:

1 OR 2 OR 3 OR 4 OR 5

Whilst this will work, its a little clunky and you need to enter the numbers 1 to 9 for each search folder…

What we need is a way to say – “Anything above zero…”

Well, after a lot of Googling, I found the answer – and it was so simple I didn’t think it’d actually work but it does. So what do you need to enter?

This:

[^0]

Yep it’s that simple – and it literally means - Any string that is not Zero..

After about 6 months, I have finally resolved a problem I was having with my SCCM Server where the OS would not fully load and about 95% of services were stopped and there was no Network communication at all

Every Monday I have had to:

1. Goto the server
2. Power it off
3. Power it back on
4. wait 5 minutes until it checked everything
5. Go into Safe Mode (took about 20 minutes as it rolled back the updates (even if there were none!)
6. Reboot
7. Wait another 15-20 minutes whilst it again rolled back the updates
8. Log in as normal!

No idea why this was happening but it was getting to be a right royal PITA!

Anyway, over the weekend I came across an article on the net somewhere, where someone had had a similar problem to me

Solution: Rerun setup and “upgrade” the server to the same edition that is currently installed – this effectively acts like a OS Repair

So this morning, after going through my usual Monday morning routine, I tried it..

And it worked!! 

Server has had 3 reboots and all (except one  which I am looking into…) services have started as expected!

Finally got round to downloading the beta for Microsoft’s latest browser offering…

So after installing it, and after the inevitable reboot I fire up the new browser only to be momentarily confused..
It looks very much like a mashup of Google Chrome and Safari…

Hmm… but is it as fast and as reliable as these two.. only time will tell I suppose..

Just been checking the stats of the site via Google Analytics and found that I have had the pleasure of a visit from someone using one of the new Apple iPads!!

Wonder who that person was….