Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) updated to 2.7!

Lot’s of improvements including direct connections to Hyper-V guest consoles. Nice.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=44989

RDCMan manages multiple remote desktop connections. It is useful for managing server labs or large server farms where you need regular access to each machine such as automated checkin systems and data centers. It is similar to the built-in MMC Remote Desktops snap-in, but more flexible. The RDCMan 2.7 version is a major feature release. New features include: – Virtual machine connect-to-console support – Smart groups – Support for credential encryption with certificates – Windows 8 remote action support – Support for Windows 8, Windows 8.1 / Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

And here’s some info about a connection bug you may or may not see

Seek and Destroy duplicate AD objects with CNF in the name

For various reasons, there are times when Active Directory may encounter a situation where multiple objects appear. The duplicates will be named with a CNF:[GUID] on the end of the name.

Here is an excellent Microsoft blog post with an explanation of why it happens and some simple commands to find these objects. It is an issue we encounter at times with Configuration Manager boundaries and slow AD replication, but could happen for many other object types also.

For a slightly simpler method, here is my approach to using AD Users and Computers to find and delete them.

ConfigMgr Management Point fails to install with error 1603

While installing multiple new ConfigMgr 2012 Management Points I was seeing a non-specific failure with an error code of 1603. Much troubleshooting and any web searches later, I discovered that there were in fact three different issues across the different servers that all failed with the same uninformative error.

1. HTTPS binding missing in IIS
2. Old WMI information from previous CM2007 client
3. BITS not installed correctly

This was really quite bizarre. When I had found the “solution” and tried applying it to other servers I found that they had a different issue, which led to a mix of all three of the above. The old WMI issue being the most prevalent.

How to locate the cause of error code 1603 in a verbose MSI log file

After having a failure on many servers installing a particular component, I found the process of scrolling through the MSI setup logs looking for the error to be incredibly tedious and unhelpful.

Luckily a colleague mentioned a tip for how to fid the error which led to this awesome blog post.

Essentially, search for “return value 3” (without the quotes) and the failing component should be just above it.

[16:07:47] The state of web site “Default Web Site” is Started.
[16:07:47] The installed certificate has a hash of length 20.
[16:07:47] @@ERR:25051
MSI (s) (AC!24) [16:07:47:727]: Product: ConfigMgr Management Point — Error 25051. Internet Information Services BITS support is not installed
Error 25051. Internet Information Services BITS support is not installed
CustomAction CcmValidateServerConfig returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)
Action ended 16:07:47: CcmValidateServerConfig. Return value 3.
Action ended 16:07:47: INSTALL. Return value 3.