Windows 10 Speech language missing

 

As part of the Insider program I get rather frequent upgrades to Windows 10. Each time the upgrade installs it resets my speech language to “English (United States)” which means Cortana stops working as my Region is set to “Australia”

I also use ConfigMgr to handle updates on my network (this would also apply for people using WSUS) so when I go into the Region & language settings I don’t get the Speech feature appearing under the “English (Australia)” options.

Luckily, it is relatively easy to sort out.

SOLUTION:

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.

Configuration Manager Update source content being deleted

[Place holder post – FULL POST write up coming shortly]

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3ac88d59-d1b5-4826-a44d-bb94bfd80f66/configmgr-2012-update-source-content-deleted?forum=configmanagergeneral#39c42c3c-d3af-4362-b097-09c022adc86b

An issue where some source folder content of Windows Update deployment packages is deleted for no apparent reason.

Currently waiting for a response from the Microsoft ConfigMgr Product team on if they feel this is an issue worthy of a product update or just a TechNet article warning of the impact

Summary: issues relating to Update deployment packages that are migrated between ConfigMgr hierarchies that share the same source folder location. Automated “orphan cleanup” process will delete content from the folder if one of the hierarchies doesn’t need it, even it the other one still does.

Microsoft Updates deployment with Configuration Manager – Braindump

This post is going to be more of a “brain-dump” post of thoughts and ideas around the process of using ConfigMgr to deploy Microsoft updates in your environment. There are already numerous “guides” on the net already, so why?

This may or may not be a long read. It will just be my thoughts at this stage, with later posts (possibly) going into details of the pros and cons of different approaches and issues encountered. All feedback or experiences you would like to share are most welcome, and I’ll incorporate new ideas and points to consider into the post

“Required” Automatic Deployment Rules

The Automatic Deployment Rule (ADR) feature in ConfigMgr2012 is quite handy, especially for people moving from WSUS that aren’t too worried about updates being automatically deployed.

Many larger organisations however tend to have a more controlling approach to which updates are approved for deployment and will approve/decline each update as required.

One thing I liked in WSUS was the ability to have updates automatically approved, but being able to set the client policy to say “Notify Only”. On my servers I could have them scan and determine applicable updates, but then I would manually approve them and reboot as required, or I could exclude some updates if they were causing problems on a per-server basis (e.g. .NET). Sure you could do all that through WSUS itself if you wanted to setup lots of different computer groups, but for small environments with half a dozen servers it’s easier this way.

In ConfigMgr2012, there is no way to “auto create” and update group unless you use an ADR. However the ADR configuration makes all deployments Mandatory with a deadline and does not give a “Required” notify only type option.

Why SCCM isn’t SCCM

This is considered a pedantic point by many people I work with, but it’s something I still work to change.

When Microsoft released System Centre Configuration Manager, the natural abbreviation/acronym that myself and pretty much everyone else used for it was “SCCM”. Makes sense.

At some time I recall that Microsoft started to make a point of telling people *not* to call it SCCM. I can’t seem to find any official Microsoft reference to this though. (If you know where an official Microsoft statement is, please let me know)

The reason is that Microsoft do not have any rights to “SCCM”, and also to prevent any possible confusion with another organisation that is already known as SCCM.

At this point I’ll hand over to the following links to explain:

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/10/25/what-is-the-official-acronym-of-system-center-2012-configuration-manager/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgr/archive/2008/06/01/sccm-is-not-the-official-acronym-for-configuration-manager.aspx

Unfortunately, SCCM is deeply ingrained into the vocabulary of the people that work with it, so it’s going to take a while (if ever) to change. I’m doing my part where I can. I will still tend to tag things with “SCCM” to help other people who are using it as a search term, but when referencing it in any documents I will use “ConfigMgr” or “CM[version]” (e.g. CM07, CM12) instead.

If you happen to notice me slipping in an “SCCM”, feel free to berate me over it.