General Availability (GA) AzureStack partners: Integrated Systems

General Availability (GA) Microsoft partners are HP Enterprise, Dell, Lenovo and Cisco.

They will al come with a so called Integrated System. The systems include hardware, software, services, and enterprise-grade customer support. The GA-version will be available from Mid-CY17.

Azure Stack will initially be available in 46 countries:

• EMEA: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
• Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, United States, Uruguay
• APAC: Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand

The technologies provided in the GA release

include the following:

• PaaS: Web Apps, Mobile Apps, and API Apps created using .NET, Java, PHP, or other technologies and Service Fabric1.
• Security: Key Vault.
• Compute: Windows and Linux Virtual Machines and VM Extensions for customization.
• Storage: Blobs storage for unstructured data, Tables, and Queues.
• Networking: Virtual Networks for isolated networks in the cloud, Load Balancers, and VPN Gateways.
• Automated deployment: Azure Resource Manager for creating templates to automate deployment.
  

  enterprise azurestack portal

• Management: Azure Stack Portal and support via Azure Resource Manager for clients like Visual Studio, PowerShell, and a command-line interface for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows).

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ConfigMgr 2012 R2, Query HKLM with Hardware inventory

introduction:

When you like to use a registry keys query in a ConfigMgr collection, you first have to Extend SCCM client Hardware Inventory with a Custom Attribute value.

You can do this with this description of Jyri Lehtonen.

After this you have changed the Configuration.mof en the MyInventoryExtension.mof

configuration.mof

MyInventoryExtension.mof

Now create a Collection with a query

create collection query

Select the value of the registry key

query value

 

the query looks like this:

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_Custom_UMCGDeployID_1_0 on SMS_G_System_Custom_UMCGDeployID_1_0.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_Custom_UMCGDeployID_1_0.TSVersion = “BUILD017_00”

Windows XP CSA Updates in System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2

This guide describes how to use System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2 to import the Windows XP CSA updates.

Logon to the System Center configuration Manager Management point and start the Windows Explorer goto C:\CSA
Remove the ‘old’ files from the Payload directory. Put them in the _Archive folder
Remove the ‘old’ cab file from the ScanCab directory. Put them in the _Archive folder
Download the ‘new’ Microsoft CSA Update Payload Packages to: C:\CSA\Payload And the CAB file to: C:\CSA\ScanCab. Use a Microsoft Account to get access to the Microsoft connect site.
Open a CMD (as an administrator) and change directory to C:\CSA
Excecute the command line: Wsusimporttool.exe c:\CSA\ScanCab\CSA-WindowsXPSP3.CAB c:\CSA\Payload\ c:\CSA\WorkingDir
Reminder: if the wsusimporttool is giving an Error “No instance of WSUS found on this server. WSUSImportTool can only be run locally on a WSUS server” use the WsusUtil from C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\ WsusUtil.exe csaimport c:\CSA\ScanCab\CSA-WindowsXPSP3.CAB c:\CSA\Payload
Check if the updates are presented in the database. Start WSUS admin tool and check if the Custom Support updates are added.
Start the SCCM console and goto Administration | Site Configuration | Sites en selecteer de Site kies voor Configure site components | Software Update Point.
Change the settings to do not synchronize from Microsoft Update or upstream data source. Reminder: change these settings back at the end of this procedure
Go to the tab Sync Schedule and choose a date and time which will take place in a couple of minutes.
A new product group, with the name “Windows XP SP3 custom support” will appear. Check this product group. And sync again from the tab sync schedule
Open the wsyncmgr.log to see if the sync is started and when it will be finished.
Wait till it’s finished.
Change the settings back in the Sync Settings Synchronize from Microsoft update
Start the SCCM console and goto Software Library | Software Updates | All Software Updates Click on synchronize Software Updates. Watch the wsyncmgr.log
See if the updates are visible in the SCCM console
Deploy the updates to the XP collection
Click Run Now

ConfigMgr Task Sequence with OSD Options Chooser and computer OU move

The OSD Options Chooser will display an option chooser box during OSD when a computername starts with MININT or MINWINPC (unknown computers). The user can type a computername and choose in which Active Directory OU the computer will be placed during the installation. It will set a Task Sequence variable OSDDepartment which will be used in the Task Sequence to move a computer to another OU.
When the computername doesn’t start with MININT or MINWINPC the Options Chooser won’t pup-up.

In this example the OSD Option Chooser will ask for a computer name and gives 4 computer type choices. The installation will be un-anttended and will close when the computername does NOT start with MININT or MIN-WINPC.

1. Create a source directory and place the two file with the name:
• OSDOptionsChooserv3.hta
• OpenDesktop.vbs

You can find the source at the end of this page.

2. Check the code in the: OSDOptionsChooserv3.hta

3. Check the code in the: OpenDesktop.vbs
Change the values in the .vbs

4. Create a Configuration Manager Package and deploy it to the distribution points.
BLS0122 OSD Options Chooser

5. Open the boot image and add the Optional Component:
HTML (WinPE-HTA)
deploy this boot image to the distribu-tion points.

6. Open a Task Sequence and add the OSD Option Chooser package right after Partitioning the disks.
This first part will show the Option Chooser for unknown computers (MININT or MINWINPC).

7. The second part will move the computer to the OU which was specified in part one.

8. Open the Options tab and ad a Task Sequence Variable OSDDepartment.

__________________________________________________________
I included one zip file with the OSDOptionChooser and OpenDesktop.vbs script we used within our company.

We added extra lines to the original script:
window.close
and
SysVarReg.RegWrite “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Hostname”, sTSMachineName

And added parts for setting the Task Sequence variable OSDDepartment (OU options).
We deleted some parts we didn’t need.
####################################################################

####################################################################

you can find the original OSD Options Chooser script Created by Nick Moseley at http://t3chn1ck.wordpress.com

Divide an IPv4 address into a network and host portion. (Quick overview)

If an organization has lots of computers, or if its computers are geographically spread, it’s a good idea to divide its netwerk into smaller ones (subnets) connected by routers. The benefit of using subnets are less traffic (most traffic will stay on the local netwerk) and easier to isolate and identify a network problem.

The subnet mask splits an IPv4 address into a network and a host portion.

In this table below you can see how you can split your subnets using a subnet mask.

binary   subnet mask	decimal subnet mask	Mask Bits	nodes per subnet
1	0.0.0.0	/1	2147483648
11	128.0.0.0	/2	1073741824
111	192.0.0.0	/3	536870912
1111	224.0.0.0	/4	268435456
1111.1	248.0.0.0	/5	134217728
1111.11	252.0.0.0	/6	67108864
1111.111	254.0.0.0	/7	33554432
CLASS A
1111.1111	255.0.0.0	/8	16777214
1111.1111 1	255.128.0.0	/9	8388606
1111.1111 11	255.192.0.0	/10	4194302
1111.1111 111	255.224.0.0	/11	2097150
1111.1111 1111.	255.240.0.0	/12	1048574
1111.1111 1111.1	255.248.0.0	/13	524286
1111.1111 1111.11	255.252.0.0	/14	262142
1111.1111 1111.111	255.254.0.0	/15	131070
CLASS B
1111.1111 1111.1111	255.255.0.0	/16	65534
1111.1111 1111.1111 1	255.255.128.0	/17	32766
1111.1111 1111.1111 11	255.255.192.0	/18	16382
1111.1111 1111.1111 111	255.255.224.0	/19	8190
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111	255.255.240.0	/20	4094
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1	255.255.248.0	/21	2046
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.11	255.255.252.0	/22	1022
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.111	255.255.254.0	/23	510
CLASS C
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111	255.255.255.0	/24	254
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 1	255.255.255.128	/25	126
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 11	255.255.255.192	/26	62
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 111	255.255.255.224	/27	30
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 1111	255.255.255.240	/28	14
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1	255.255.255.248	/29	6
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.11	255.255.255.252	/30	2
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.111	255.255.255.254	/31	0
1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111 1111.1111	255.255.255.255	/32	0

Installing an SSD equipped machine with the Configuration Manager Task Sequence is causing problems. #yam

We had a problem deploying new laptops / notebooks with Sollid State Disk (SSD). They just came out of the box. The vendor had them pre-installed with eg. Windows 7.

We see that there is a problem when an Operating System is distributed by System Center Configuration Manager to client computers with SSD. There is no problem

Is 1 Yottabyte (YB) enough to store all your files?

Microsoft released a new type of local file system in Windows Server 2012, it is called Resilient File System (ReFS). Microsoft designed this new file system because they see that there is a growth in storage (big data) and it works well with their new Storage Spaces feature in Windows Server 2012.

Initially it will be used for the file servers to prevent data loss and downtime.

In Windows Server 2012 you can choose between FAT32, NTFS and ReFS.

ReFS support features that contain functionality that proactively scans and repairs bad disk clusters (they use a “scrubber”). It’s a “Self-healing” file system and designed to prioritize the availability of data. If data corruption occurs the data will stay available without volume down-time. If data is corrupted an auto-repair (salvage) is triggered (it’s resilient to curruption) and it can remove the corrupted data, the volume will then be brought back online in a split second without the corrupted data.

1 yottabyte (YB) is 1.000.0