Configuration Manager 1610 adventures

Yes, we skipped 1602 and went to 1606 in our Dev environment, but due to various change freezes, conflicts with other projects and change management delays we have decided we will be going from 1511 direct to 1610 in Prod.

The Dev upgrade went OK (using the “FastRing” powershell script) however it was then announced there were some additional bugs found and a newer 1610 installed was released. The updates though have not as yet been posted to update the people that had run the original 1610 install…

Configuration Manager 1602 adventures

Each new update of ConfigMgr I will start a new entry for anything specific to that version I want to test or make notes of.

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:

Configuration Manager Replication queue backlog clearing

I recently experienced an issue with a very large number of ConfigMgr 2007 package updates (400) to a large number of sites (1700). It turns out there was already a distribution job that was “stuck” in the queue and when the large update went out it resulted in a massive backlog. The end result being there were over 1.3 million files in the Replication Manager inbox that just weren’t being processed, and the number was increasing.

The only option in this sort of situation is to stop the services, move the files out of the inbox, let normal inbox processing resume and then copy the files back in a block at a time. In this case doing this manually wasn’t an option due to the number of files, so I resorted to a quick script based on the one found here: https://tricksntreats.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/sccm-backlog-fighting/

ConfigMgr client constantly reinstalling every 5 hours

I first had this happen on just one of my servers. It was annoying and was causing massive numbers of WMI entries in the event logs each time it happened. I tried to just stop and disable the ConfigMgr client, but it would be “reactivated” again by something. Recently at a client site I found it happening an a large number… so time to investigate.

I checked there were no push jobs running, but there was *something* causing it to repeat. Some digging later and I finally found the reason.

There is a scheduled task created by CCMSETUP to retry if it isn’t able to install correctly on the first attempt. Under some circumstances, this task isn’t cleaned up and so the reinstall keeps happening

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.

Create a “dummy” Distribution Point Group for testing

When working with new packages, in particular very large ones, or when performing an action with a wizard that insists on adding distribution points (e.g. Software Update download) I find it helpful to use a “dummy” Distribution Point Group.

The reason for this is simple. For example, I want to create a new Software Updates deployment package that will contain a lot of updates, and using the wizard it requires me to select a target to distribute this new package to. I plan to add other updates or make further changes so I don’t really want (or need) it to be sent to an actual DP just yet. This is especially true when creating temporary update source content (another issue for another post).

To work around this, I just create a “Blank”, or testing Distribution Point Group with no members. This DP Group is perfectly fine to use in the wizard and allows the package source to be created and downloaded without then needing to wait for it to be sent to the DP.

Automagically documenting Config Manager Task Sequences

Being able to document Task Sequences is a handy thing, but doing it manually is incredibly tedious, error prone, and likely to miss details.

There is a process that has been around for a while now, so I figured I’d just post it here for easy reference as I keep forgetting where to find it. This process was developed for ConfigMgr 2007, but there is also a way to do it for 2012 as well.

ConfigMgr OSD fails to start in WinPE

A simple task sequence deployed to a collection, a virtual machine (Hyper-V guest) booting with PxE to run that task sequence.

WinPE starts up, loads the networking (which gives a working IP address, can ping/connect to servers) but then the computer just reboots. No errors or warnings.

With WinPE debug mode enabled, you can press F8 to load the command prompt, but smsts.log doesn’t report an obvious error. Lot’s of “access denied” type messages that led me hunting issues with Network access accounts and such

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